What makes a team?

Is it wins, superstar players who leave us in awe with their seemingly boundless potential? Without a doubt, they certainly help.

But on the softball field at Sammamish High School, a group of young ladies show us another definition of what a team can be. This season, the Totems have played their entire season with only the minimum nine players.

No breaks, no pinch-hitters, no one on the bench. No one at all.

Sammamish is one injury, one player who is unable to make grades, one girl who just says “Enough!” and quits the team away from no longer competing at all in 2011.

But you would never know it by watching them. You see, to the Totems, playing the game is all that matters.

Most coaches offer-up one form or another of the dreaded “coach speak” when pressed on expectations for the season and how to improve results. I don’t believe most, but I have to believe Jessica Cabales. Sammamish doesn’t just talk about giving one-hundred percent and working to get better regardless of wins, they live it.

I truly believe that Cabales and her team will be happy with individual improvement, even if it comes in the form of baby-steps.

There is no doubt in my mind that as long as the coach is able to help improve the lives of her players away from the diamond, what happens on it will be of little importance. And that is refreshing.

After being immersed in the program since her freshman year of high school, Cabales is the right person for the job, regardless of record. She does more than coach Sammamish softball, she is Sammamish softball.

Her players respond to her, they believe in her message. They give their time and effort, completely uncertain of what, if anything, they will receive in return.

Here’s to hoping one way or another, they get rewarded.

All nine of them.