More Than Winning

In 2002, Jim Justice coached his daughter’s basketball team to the West Virginia State tournament for the first time. Over the next four years, the team would keep going back, sometimes making it into the championship game, but never winning it all.
In the five years since the team’s last State appearance, the girls who once sat in elementary schools watching their predecessors play in these tournaments, have grown up and become the Lady Spartans. In that same time, their coach Justice, 59, has purchased the Greenbrier Resort, adding to his portfolio of over 40 businesses, and has been referred to as one of the richest men in America; and the team has earned its way back to the tournament.

In the week leading up to State, the girls balanced their time between practicing basketball, meeting with younger students through a series of pep rallies and bonding as a team.

Wednesday morning, the school and the community rallied behind the team who they followed the next day in 19 buses to Charleston to watch the Lady Spartans play their first game. It would only take one game for the Spartans to be knocked out of the tournament, losing 73 to 55 against Bridgeport High School