Tom Hickman

Husband. Father of 4. PacNW raised. Former 🥎 coach - Whitnall HS; Forest Grove HS. All tweets/opinions are my own.

[Barack Obama @BarackObama]

To George and Laura, Bill and Hillary — we're grateful for your friendship, counsel, and devotion to this country. And to Joe and Jill, thank you for being on this journey with us.

[Tom Hickman @Coach_Hickman]

@RossDellenger Does anyone believe Tuberville actually wrote this? 🙄 I’m shocked, shocked I say, that a Senator from the heart of SEC country would have issues with this legislation.

[Tom Hickman @Coach_Hickman]

@BrockHuard @SeattleSports He took Seattle to heights never seen before and then lost himself in the fame and fortune, forgetting what made him great to begin with. So much “what could have been” with him.

[Steve Magness @stevemagness]

If you’ve never cried after giving everything you had to something that mattered, you’ve probably never given everything you had to something that mattered.

The UCONN women’s basketball team was undefeated, 38-0 for the season. But with a little over a minute left in their final four matchup against South Carolina, Kayleigh Heckel went up for a lay-up to cut the score to 9 and keep alive a tiny bit of hope. She missed. The camera zooms in on Heckel as she drops her head and tears began to flow. It was a harsh moment of realizing that the dream was over.

In 2024, Keisei Tominaga was captured crying on the sidelines with a minute left when his Nebraska team lost to Texas A&M in the tournament. Back in 2006, Adam Morrison had a similar reaction with a few seconds left, after Gonzaga had blown a 17 point lead in the sweet sixteen.

Will all due respect to Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own, there is crying in sport. A lot of it. And contrary to some of the talk on social media, it’s the opposite of weakness. It’s a clear signal of a genuine competitor.

We cry because we care. Tears are proof of our investment.

Psychologist Ad Vingerhoets at Tilburg University has spend decades studying crying. He found that humans are the only species that cries emotionally. And the primary reason we do it is it acts s a kind of communicative device. Tears signal to others that something matters deeply to us and we need support. It’s as if the tears are saying, “this thing matters to me more than I can say.”

As a coach, I’ve seen the toughest of competitors, athletes who are among the best in the country or even the world, break down from time to time. It’s one of the beautiful things about sport. For many reasons, it’s one of the few areas where we let the guard down, show what we really feel, and express genuine emotion. Sometimes, that means tears of joy, other times a crushing bitter disappointment that we can’t quite process. This is especially true for men, who often try to be stoic, thanks to a combination of culture and biology.

Yet, in the days before memes Morrison might as well have become one, as he “got murdered for it” and was “kind of shocked by how much negative feedback” he received. Heckel’s been met with a mixture of support and the sadly expected condemnation.

Those people are clueless.

From the sidelines, it may look like a weakness because you’ve never been in those moments. You’ve never given your all to something, risked greatness, and saw that dream get ripped away. When you step into the arena, you put it all on the line. And in sport, music, and performance arts, one of the few places that are the last bastions of reality. You can’t fake it, it’s all there to see, and there’s a clearly defined success or failure.

You have to care deeply to even be in that spot in the first place. No one made it anywhere close to fulfilling their potential, let alone the pinnacle of their endeavor by not caring. That kind of nonchalance is reserved for the sideline. It’s the cool kid in high school who tries to convince others not trying is the cool thing to do. All so they can protect their ego and say, “I would have gotten an A, made the team, won the tournament, if I had tried…”

Caring is cool. It’s also the only way you see how good you can be. Our brain has a kind of internal safety mechanism that prevents us from ever truly pushing to our limit. And for good reason. If a marathoner really ran out of glycogen or let their core body temperature keep rising, then serious illness or death awaits. Instead, we run a kind of inner calculation that says: is the juice worth the squeeze? Caring deeply is what allows us to push just a bit harder. It tells that safety mechanism, “Ya, we’re in a lot of discomfort right now, but this means a lot, so give us a little bit longer of a leash.”

So if I ever saw someone crying after a tough race, I knew that was an athlete I wanted on my team. It meant they cared. It meant the moment meant so much to them, that they could no longer put on a face, or hold things back. It meant more to them than they could verbally communicate.

We need more people with passion, who are willing to risk it all, to be have the emotions of the moment overwhelm them. It’s only by stepping into the arena and taking that risk that we find out how good we can be, and more importantly, who we are. The potential for tears is the price of admission.

Morrison got murdered for crying in 2006. Tominaga said it should be celebrated in 2024. He was right.

-Steve

[Tom Hickman @Coach_Hickman]

Amazing story.

[Brenna Greene @BrennaGreene_]

Worth three minutes of your time.

Scott Rueck talking about how he found Ally Schimel two years ago and offered her a walk-on spot. Today Ally scored a career-high 21 points in OSU's WCC semifinal today.

Also a good reminder. You never know who's watching.

[Tom Hickman @Coach_Hickman]

@RyanDivish That’ll work.

[Tom Hickman @Coach_Hickman]

@JonRothstein

[Tom Hickman @Coach_Hickman]

This hit hard today. Miss you Dad.

[Brady Henderson @BradyHenderson]

John Schneider noted how several people in the organization lost loved ones this season, including the GM losing his own father. He said they had angels watching over them, including late owner Paul Allen.

He toasted to Jody Allen, telling her that her brother would be proud.

[Stanford Steve @StanfordSteve82]

Game of the year in Nashville.
Unreal scene.
Shout out the fan bases of Illinois State and Montana State.
And these players balling out on their biggest stage.

[Tom Hickman @Coach_Hickman]

@PuckSports They also mentioned Kyle Shanahan if he has been able to beat Seattle. 🙄 Idiocy

[Tom Hickman @Coach_Hickman]

😂😂😂 professional liar.

[Cougar Sports Network @CougSportsNet]

🫩

[Tom Hickman @Coach_Hickman]

@PuckSports 👎

[Tom Hickman @Coach_Hickman]

@TheoLawson_SR The NCAA is such a gross travesty. Good for TGF!

[Tom Hickman @Coach_Hickman]

6 pitches to Julio there in the 9th - not one was in the zone.

[Tom Hickman @Coach_Hickman]

@PuckSports Love it

[Dave “Softy” Mahler @Softykjr]

Overcome with emotion.

A whole new generation of Mariners fans were born tonight.

Wish Dad was here to see this.

4 games away from the World Series. Would love to get their for him. I know you've got somebody in mind too.

[Tom Hickman @Coach_Hickman]

@SchlittlerMuse @JeffPassan Woo

[Tom Hickman @Coach_Hickman]

@PuckSports Lovely. Didn’t even give him a clean inning to come into.

[Tom Hickman @Coach_Hickman]

@PuckSports A couple base runners. 🤷‍♂️
Bazardo looks done. Leaving pitches up.