GLENDALE, Arizona For a brief while in the Alabama basketball offseason, fans were concerned about recruitment because three of the team’s assistant coaches had taken head coaching positions elsewhere.
Preston Murphy, who offers “on-court coaching and on-campus recruiting support,” was hired by Nate Oats, who swiftly reassembled his coaching staff, according to the team website.
One thing about Alabama sports is that every team helps out every other team. It had to be expected that Alabama Softball Coach Patrick Murphy would say, “First of all, we are just thrilled for Nate, the staff, the team,” during his preview of this weekend’s Crimson Tide home series against Ole Miss. They are genuinely a nice group of guys. It’s been a lot of pleasure supporting them and
Mudita.
The phrase has recently been used by Alabama basketball coach Nate Oats, whose team is playing UConn in the NCAA Final Four tonight, as well as by Alabama softball players.
Murphy gave him an explanation of its beginnings and how Alabama men’s basketball has benefited from it.
“I used to say, if you could be as happy for a teammate’s success as if you did it yourself, the sky is the limit for the team,” Murphy stated. “During the first twelve years of my coaching career at Alabama, I repeated that again and over.
“I was reading the book Help the Helper at home in December of 2013.” It’s a phrase from basketball. If you are able to assist someone with their guy and someone comes to assist you with
“I shot up in bed and said, ‘Holy smokes, it’s a word for what I’m trying to get my girls to be like.’ I get up, type it in my phone, and there it is – ‘mudita, having vicarious joy in someone else’s success.’ The coolest thing is there’s not an English word that equals it. It’s a Buddhist word; it comes from Sanskrit.
“There are two words that are the opposite – ‘jealousy’ and ‘envy.’
“In any profession, any team sport, any family, any business, it doesn’t matter. When there is jealousy or envy within a team, it’s not a good thing.
“So we adopted ‘mudita’ as one of our main themes.
“In our clubhouse there is a mural that says ‘mudita.’ And all of the pictures are of someone hitting a home run, but it is the celebration after that you can’t tell who hit the home run because everyone is happy.”
On to basketball with this basketball themed word.
Murphy claimed, “I would text Nate, ‘Good job,’ ‘Get them next time,’ or something like that, after practically every game.
“They won the game the Saturday before classes started [this semester]. “Excellent work,” I texted him.
“He texted me the following evening, saying, ‘I might need that mudita talk.’
He requested it at 11:30 the following day.
“It was the day before classes started, and the following night they were playing South Carolina.
“I went to their team room and asked a GA to assist me set it up after I stated I would be there.
“They enter the team room while continuing their lengthy practice.
“Oh, that’s fantastic, I’m thinking. They’re worn out. They perspire a lot. They’re most likely ravenous. Next, they
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