Life lessons learned from unkept promise

RICHFIELD — In the searing heat of July, a dying man asked a girls basketball team for something special.

It wasn't just a selfish request — although it would bring him the kind of joy every father craves when his child decides to enter the cruel, unforgiving and deeply rewarding universe of competitive sports.

His request would provide a historic moment for Bryce Valley and the tiny town of Tropic. It would be something wonderful in a winter that was surely going to be excruciatingly painful for his family.

"He went up to coach B and said, 'Promise me you'll win a state championship for me,'" said Steve's daughter and a guard on the team, Makelle Pollock.

So coach Tyson Brinkerhoff and his players made Steve the promise. They'd win him a state title.

And they meant to. They really did.

It was not a silly request or a desperate promise. The Mustangs had come close last season when they played for the 1A state title but lost to perennial powerhouse, Rich. And most of those players returned — better, more experienced and more determined.

Ranked No. 1 by coaches in preseason polls, they earned some impressive preseason wins, losing only to ranked 2A schools. And then they went undefeated in one of the most competitive regions in the state — Region 20.

And were it not for the region's much maligned, sometimes feared, and often hated seeding tournament, they might have gotten a lot closer to keeping that promise.

Instead, they learned about life's disappointments and the how love really is more powerful than pain. They learned that the games we turn to in hopes of escaping life's realities teach us more about how to navigate those agonies than we really wanted to know.

They finished fourth in that tournament and drew the defending state champions in the first round of the state tournament.

And they lost, once again, to the Rebels.

Devastated doesn't begin to describe how they players felt knowing they could not keep their promise to Pollock, who was too sick to travel to the tournament.

And then the girls got a text. The players who'd just broken their hearts — and their promise — asked if they could help keep it alive.

Senior guard Cassidy McKee was talking with her father, who'd discussed the promise with some Bryce Valley parents, and they came up with an idea.