French Settlement senior basketball players, from left, Shay Parker, Serenity Smith, Mae Babin, Dannah Martin and Baylee Balfantz.
French Settlement’s Laura Cox (1) shoots a 3-pointer in the first half.
HAMMOND – It started simply enough and then became a rallying cry for the French Settlement girls basketball team.
And while the Lady Lions didn’t finish the season as state champions, the ‘Why Not Us?’ mantra helped carry them to the Class 2A state semifinals.
It all started before the season, when FSHS coach Daniel Martin was scouting teams in Hall of Fame games.
“I went early to scout out a few teams (and was) just kind of sitting and watching and getting a little fired up watching games and watching the talent on the floor and thinking about our team and what we’re capable of and what we had, and I just felt like we had something special going,” he said. “I felt like it’s a special group of girls with their chemistry with each other and the way their styles fit together. I was just sitting there thinking, ‘Why couldn’t we be the ones to make a run?’
“Why couldn’t that be us?”
Martin fired off a text to his players that read:
‘Thinking about this game and this season. Every year four teams make it to state from schools that are 2A. That means they are from schools that are our size. Why shouldn't this be us? We have all of the pieces and all of the work ethic. Why not us? I don't measure our success based on just wins and losses but I also don't want to undervalue our ability. Let's get this started today. I know there is apparently a big football game going today but my only concern is our game. LET'S GO TAKE CARE OF BUSINESS. #whynotus?’
While it may seem a little far-fetched for a coach to send such a message to his team before even playing a game, Martin didn’t flinch.
“I’ve believed in this team 100% since Day One, and I think we’ve talked about that probably every day when we go into the locker room at the end of a practice,” Daniel Martin said. “I would tell them, almost every day, ‘you don’t realize how good you can be. You don’t realize how good you are. You don’t realize how special of a group you are. You don’t realize how special a team you are’, and I don’t think they did. I think we talked it, but I still don’t think they realized ‘we’re really good.’” But I felt like all along, it was very special group.
“From there, they kind of took that on, and it’s just kind of become who we are,” Daniel Martin continued.
The Lady Lions' starting five, seniors Dannah Martin, Serenity Smith, Mae Babin, Shay Parker and Baylee Balfantz, along with top reserve Laura Cox, each summed up their feelings after receiving the text.
“I’m one of the most competitive people I’ve ever met, so I’m reading that message and it lights a fire in me, and I think that this entire season that we’ve all had that fire, that will to win, that desire,” Dannah Martin said.
Said Smith: “Let’s play,” Smith said. “I was ready to play. I was ready to prove ‘Why not us?’’”
Babin, who transferred to FSHS for her senior season, had another take.
“It was definitely something special for me, because I’ve never had that kind of belief in my team,” Babin said. “I’ve never had that coach who thought so highly of us and wanted us to come together like that, so it was really, really special for me because it really just said something about how much of a family we were, how much we all cared, and how much we were willing to give for this.”
“It just gives you a lot of confidence in your teammates and in yourself, like ‘Why not us?’ Going into that, anybody can win it,” Parker said. “One team’s going to win it, and when we adopted that motto, it’s like we’re going to win it, like ‘Why not us?’, so it just gives you a lot of confidence going into games and stuff.”
The text meant something different for Balfantz, who knew she’d be taking on a bigger leadership role in her senior season.
“I’ve never played a leader role in anything before,” she said. “I would always just follow whatever they say or watch their moves and try to improve myself off whoever I was watching, and this year, I kind of had to be a leader and role model for younger girls since I’m a senior. When I got the text, it just made it surreal that, well, you’re a senior now. You’re a starter now. You’re going to have to live up to expectation that everyone has for you. They all helped me to get that confidence and play my role.”
For Cox, the text was all about boosting her confidence.
“It makes me believe in every single player,” Cox said. “It makes me believe in my coach. It just makes me believe in myself, because I’m one of those people that if I have someone believe in me, that I’m going to believe in everybody else. It’s just a domino effect, so whenever I got the text, it was like, ‘I’m ready to go. I’m ready to play. I’m ready to be with these seniors. I’m ready to start off this year a good year and finish it off great.
“It helps me believe in myself, because I have trouble with confidence,” Cox said. “The ‘why not us’ helps me believe in me. Ya’ll (teammates) help me too, but the ‘why not us’ helps me believe in me.”
Dannah Martin, Parker and Babin pointed to different parts in the season where they mantra may have helped the team push through some rough spots, with Martin pointing to the team’s loss to St. Thomas Aquinas at STA as one of those points.
“I think that in all walks of life, nothing’s ever going to be perfect,” Dannah Martin said. “You’re never going to have a perfect season. Whether you’re undefeated or not, you’re never going to have a perfect season. I think that was one of those games where we came out and it was just a slow night and couldn’t really get anything going. I thought that we fought against a lot that game.”
Daniel Martin said the team also showed its character in not letting the loss derail its goals for the season.
“This is a different group,” he said. “You talk about taking things one game at a time, and I really think they do that. When they were in district, I don’t think they were thinking about state. I don’t even think they were thinking about the next game. I think it was just really one game at a time. I think that sounds cliché, but with this group, I think it was really true.”
It’s that type mentality that Smith said made it easier to get though any bumps in the road the team experienced this season.
“Honestly, there was never really a tough spot because I just felt like no matter how much anything goes wrong, you always have somebody coming up and picking you up,” Smith said. “There were times like losses or something like that, but there was always somebody that was coming up behind you (saying) ‘shake it off’, or coming up behind you saying how good they though you played. It wasn’t outside people. It was the team, so I felt like there really isn’t anything that I can’t get over without my team.”
For Babin, the mantra proved helpful as she battled ankle and knee injuries during the season.
“I would say it was a setback, but with this team, like Serenity said, it’s so hard to think of a tough time,” Babin said. “Even when I was injured, I was on the sideline cheering everyone on. I was still in there. I still felt like part of the team. Just having them to support me, it helps you want to get back out there as quick as possible. You want to be there the next second.”
For Parker, the mantra rang true in the Lady Lions’ quarterfinal road win over Avoyelles Charter, in which FSHS used a 12-2 run in the first quarter to take the lead on its way to a 51-45 win.
“It just encourages us, because no matter where we go, no matter where we’re playing, it’s going to be somebody that wins, so again, ‘Why not us?’ We have the ability,” she said. “We have the players, and we’re just confident in the team. Road games, I don’t even feel like I’m not playing at home.”
Daniel Martin also spoke highly of his team’s effort against Avoyelles Charter.
“They really just looked very poised,” Daniel Martin said. “You would have never thought it was that loud the way we started off. (It was just) a taking care of business type of thing.”
Daniel Martin said Balfantz’s ‘why not us?’ moment came in a 53-51 win over Northlake Christian, when Northlake rolled the ball down the floor with seconds remaining in the game on an in-bounds play and Balfantz alertly sprinted and dove for the ball in an effort to pick up a steal. She was fouled on the play and made one of two free throws to put FSHS up 53-48.
“The things that Baylee brings, you don’t see in the stats,” Daniel Martin. “It’s intangibles and people don’t realize how much she brings to the team. The play against Northlake, I mean, that sums it up.”
“She’s our grit,” Dannah Martin said of Balfantz.
Balfantz said her teammates helped her become a better player and leader this season.
“I don’t even have a worry,” she said. “I do not doubt anything I do, because I know what I’m doing is for a reason. If I set a screen for Dannah, she’s going to pop up and hit a three. If I set a screen, same thing, or she’s going to drive, and Mae, she’s going to dunk on somebody. I don’t even second-guess anything any more. I just do it, and it ends up well, so just keep doing it. Don’t fix it if it’s not broken.”
Although the Lady Lions came up short of a state title, they’ll always have 'Why Not Us?', which Dannah Martin said will carry on well past any of the team members’ basketball careers.
“We’re more than any of the losses we’ve taken or any of the success – any of the wins that we’ve achieved, and I think that really defines us as a team,” she said. “All in all, we’re each other. We’re family, and I think that comes before anything else.”
