A Letter to the Leader
posted by David Cloninger, 12/22/2009 12:09:00 PM
Let me have control,
The way I see it,
It’s got to be right for you.
I could be your pilot,
Through the stormy seas,
The way you see it,
It’s just a case of trust in me.
I could be your hero,
I’ll be your piece of mind,
The way that I see it,
It’s got to be good for you.”
----------------------------- NAZARETH
Devan Downey, it is time.
Time for you to take control over your team, and make no mistake, it is yours. With Dominique Archie officially gone for the season and South Carolina in a state of trembling apprehension about how the rest of this year will go, you must take over.
Because that’s what leaders do. And that is what you most certainly are.
Yes, it’s unfair to ask you to be the leading scorer, creator, driver, finisher, big-shot taker and big-shot maker. But as you know from a boyhood in Chester, life ain’t fair.
This cannot be a season of excuse, where the Gamecocks go merely .500 or slightly better and can hang it on, “Well, if Dominique was there …” There is talent on this team, perhaps not as much as before, but there is more than last year.
What it has to do, to use a term avoided by Darrin Horn, is step up. And it starts with you, Devan.
Your scoring has been fine this year. Your ball-handling has not. It’s only going to get tougher, too, with opponents knowing you’ll be the go-to guy and locking down on you. That’s what Wofford did, that’s what Clemson did, and that’s where two of the three losses on the schedule have come from.
I wish I could list something specific for you to do to improve it but you and I know you’ve forgotten more about being a point guard than I’ll ever learn. I’ve known that since the first game I saw you play, back when you were a sophomore at Chester High School with your hair in braids -- Allen Iverson without the ink or the attitude.
You’ve been Superman so many times that when you turned back into Clark Kent a few times this year, it was so unbelievable that I brushed it aside as a bad day. But the bad days kept accumulating, and it all came to a head during the Wofford disaster.
USC rebounded and beat Furman to finish the pre-Christmas portion of the schedule 8-3. That’s not too far off from where the “experts” predicted the Gamecocks would be. You, Devan, scored 16 with eight assists and seven steals to wipe out four turnovers. That is a wonderful game.
Now you’ve got to keep it up, through the final 19 games of the regular season, through at least one game in the SEC tournament. Any games after that are products of what you do.
If you play your game and display the courage and commitment to save this season, your teammates will follow. They have been around you too long not to know of the intense desire to succeed that burns within you.
You’re never going to get another chance to do what you’ve always dreamed of doing. The NCAA tournament is still there. No team has ever been eliminated from an NCAA berth in December and that’s not going to start this year.
This team has one chance, one more year to play with you at the helm. That chance may not get any better for a while than it is right now, even with Archie on the shelf. The youth that will define this team next year and the year beyond could by itself keep the Gamecocks from taking that next step.
Which is why the rest of this year has to be yours, and why you must put this entire team on your back and carry it forward. It would be an absolute disgrace for you to end your spectacular career without ever knowing what it’s like to play in the NCAA tournament.
This team may not be good enough to get to the NCAAs, even with you playing at an All-American pace. I don’t think that’s the case, but the other teams in the SEC may not agree with me.
Your own coach said that Furman was unquestionably your best game. You said you don’t feel any pressure to live up to that every night from here on out.
Those are admirable things to say, but they were coming just before an eight-day layoff. Once the Gamecocks return on Dec. 30, Devan, you will again have to be this team’s leader.
You’ve never needed it before, but I’ll wish you luck anyway. This is your season, your team, your dream.
Good luck.
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“Let me be your leader,
Let me have control,
The way I see it,
It’s got to be right for you.
I could be your pilot,
Through the stormy seas,
The way you see it,
It’s just a case of trust in me.
I could be your hero,
I’ll be your piece of mind,
The way that I see it,
It’s got to be good for you.”
----------------------------- NAZARETH
Devan Downey, it is time.
Time for you to take control over your team, and make no mistake, it is yours. With Dominique Archie officially gone for the season and South Carolina in a state of trembling apprehension about how the rest of this year will go, you must take over.
Because that’s what leaders do. And that is what you most certainly are.
Yes, it’s unfair to ask you to be the leading scorer, creator, driver, finisher, big-shot taker and big-shot maker. But as you know from a boyhood in Chester, life ain’t fair.
This cannot be a season of excuse, where the Gamecocks go merely .500 or slightly better and can hang it on, “Well, if Dominique was there …” There is talent on this team, perhaps not as much as before, but there is more than last year.
What it has to do, to use a term avoided by Darrin Horn, is step up. And it starts with you, Devan.
Your scoring has been fine this year. Your ball-handling has not. It’s only going to get tougher, too, with opponents knowing you’ll be the go-to guy and locking down on you. That’s what Wofford did, that’s what Clemson did, and that’s where two of the three losses on the schedule have come from.
I wish I could list something specific for you to do to improve it but you and I know you’ve forgotten more about being a point guard than I’ll ever learn. I’ve known that since the first game I saw you play, back when you were a sophomore at Chester High School with your hair in braids -- Allen Iverson without the ink or the attitude.
You’ve been Superman so many times that when you turned back into Clark Kent a few times this year, it was so unbelievable that I brushed it aside as a bad day. But the bad days kept accumulating, and it all came to a head during the Wofford disaster.
USC rebounded and beat Furman to finish the pre-Christmas portion of the schedule 8-3. That’s not too far off from where the “experts” predicted the Gamecocks would be. You, Devan, scored 16 with eight assists and seven steals to wipe out four turnovers. That is a wonderful game.
Now you’ve got to keep it up, through the final 19 games of the regular season, through at least one game in the SEC tournament. Any games after that are products of what you do.
If you play your game and display the courage and commitment to save this season, your teammates will follow. They have been around you too long not to know of the intense desire to succeed that burns within you.
You’re never going to get another chance to do what you’ve always dreamed of doing. The NCAA tournament is still there. No team has ever been eliminated from an NCAA berth in December and that’s not going to start this year.
This team has one chance, one more year to play with you at the helm. That chance may not get any better for a while than it is right now, even with Archie on the shelf. The youth that will define this team next year and the year beyond could by itself keep the Gamecocks from taking that next step.
Which is why the rest of this year has to be yours, and why you must put this entire team on your back and carry it forward. It would be an absolute disgrace for you to end your spectacular career without ever knowing what it’s like to play in the NCAA tournament.
This team may not be good enough to get to the NCAAs, even with you playing at an All-American pace. I don’t think that’s the case, but the other teams in the SEC may not agree with me.
Your own coach said that Furman was unquestionably your best game. You said you don’t feel any pressure to live up to that every night from here on out.
Those are admirable things to say, but they were coming just before an eight-day layoff. Once the Gamecocks return on Dec. 30, Devan, you will again have to be this team’s leader.
You’ve never needed it before, but I’ll wish you luck anyway. This is your season, your team, your dream.
Good luck.
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David Cloninger. David is a full-time staff writer for GamecockCentral, and covers Gamecock football, men's basketball, baseball and recruiting. He may be reached by email at david(at)gamecockcentral.com. Replace (at) with @.