What’s the most important thing your players have taught you?

“I’ve been a head coach for 30 years at all different levels – high school, junior college and Division 1. The most important thing is love no matter what. That’s the most powerful thing on Earth. In sports, people can forget about that. It doesn’t matter, it’s still true. The most powerful thing is love. At the end of the year, when I step off the bus to go to a championship tournament, we’ve worked on building relationships, we’ve worked on love all year. We practice how to forgive, how to ask forgiveness. We’ve worked on building relationships, working through challenges in relationships. The bond that we have gives us the advantage. We’ve been underdogs and gone and beat other teams. I always say love wins out. Everybody’s working hard all year. Every coach in our league is great, but I really think that’s what sets us apart is how hard we work in relationships.” – Chanda Rigby, head women’s basketball coach at Troy University.

Coach Chanda Rigby believes love is a crucial element of team sports. (Tamika Moore / People of Alabama)

She’s also learned another important lesson in her years of coaching.

“Seek to understand before being understood. To understand other people, rather than try to have them understand you first, it changes everything. It has been a big part of enabling me to be as successful as I have been not only in winning championships, but in helping a large number of first-generation college students obtain their college degree. Understanding them first, I think that’s one of the most important things.”

These are the faces and stories of people from all walks of life who call Alabama home. People of Alabama is a Red Clay Media and Alabama NewsCenter partnership.