Sports Spot with Ellen Canale / Women’s basketball player

Everything we have done in the last four years feels like it comes down to this weekend.  All the suicides, mile runs, hours spent in the gym sweating, crying, screaming all has lead us to where we are now and where we want to be on Saturday night.

But I know that I came here to do more than just that – I came here to turn a basketball team into a program.

The seniors and I came to Eastern to leave behind a legacy and build a tradition.  This weekend we have the opportunity to win a championship. If we come back to Charleston with a championship trophy and rings on our fingers will we be remembered?
And what happens if we don’t?

I think the most disappointed people won’t be our fans, the administration or the students at Eastern but every player and coach who has poured everything they had into this year and for some of us the last four years.

Will what we’ve done here at Eastern be tainted if we don’t win it all this weekend?  No.  Somewhere in my heart I believe that with a trophy or not, the girls and coaches of this team have left its mark all the same. We have taken a program from losing to winning, from empty gyms to devoted fans, from no respect within the conference to being a team to beat. The legacy that is 2008-2009 Eastern women’s basketball team does not live and die with winning a Ohio Valley Conference Tournament Championship this weekend, but it sure wouldn’t hurt.

Ellen Canale is a senior communication studies major and a senior guard on the Eastern women’s basketball team.