Think, Look & Act Like A Winner: Wes Flanigan Ready To
Help Bring UAB Back To National Prominence
November 2,
2009
Basketball,
as with most sports, is a game of challenges. Every
individual who plays basketball, regardless of their god
given talents, must at some point in their careers
confront adversity in order to progress. More often then
not, hard work and persistence is the winning formula to
break through it. Yet sometimes a player is faced with a
form of challenge that cannot simply be overcome with
mere work ethic.
During his senior season at Auburn University in
1996-97, Wes Flanigan had to confront just such a
challenge. Coming off of three seasons as one of the
best guards in the SEC, Wes was diagnosed with cancer
after his junior year. He was forced to undergo a
complex and painful surgery which involved the removal
of an area of muscle and soft-tissue of the tumor down
to the bone. A bone graft was taken from his right leg
and a bone plate was placed over the graft to stabilize
his arm bone. Amazingly enough, only a few months after
the surgery Wes was back with his team practicing. Even
after such a traumatic event as a fight with cancer at
the age of 21, the disease was no match for Wes’s desire
to play the game of basketball. Wes faced up to his
misfortunes, confronted the disease head on and
valiantly came out the other side alive and a better
person for it. He did it with a mantra that he carries
with him today, “Be Positive, Special, Work Hard, Think,
Look & Act Like A Winner.”
Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. Today
Wes Flanigan enters his 2nd season as an assistant coach
with the University of Alabama – Birmingham. The very
same UAB team that he made his triumphant return against
some 13 years earlier after recovering from his bought
with cancer. With the Conference USA title up for grabs,
UAB is ready to compete once more for league
superiority. Admittedly, some view the season as a
rebuilding year after the loss of several starters. The
Blazers will have just 11 scholarship players this
season, including two key transfers in George Drake
(Vanderbilt) and big man Kenneth Cooper (Louisiana
Tech). In spite of the naysayers, Wes Flanigan knows
that there will always be something working against a
team and inexperience is no excuse for having a let down
season.
Such an attitude is not surprise coming from a coach
that has known only success during his career. In five
seasons on the staff at Northwest Mississippi Community
College, Flanigan helped coach the team to a 119-39
record, three Region XXIII championships and three trips
to the National Junior College National Championship
Tournament. The Rangers also captured two MACJC North
Division titles and the state championship in 2001.
Following his stint on the Junior College level, Wes
went on to become Associate Head Coach at University of
Arkansas – Little Rock. The players that Wes helped
recruit have allowed the team to enjoy an unprecedented
run of 20+ win seasons and top finishes in the Sun Belt
Conference.
Wes realizes that returning UAB to the top of Conference
USA and its place as a perennial Top 25 team will take
time. Hard work, passion and dedication will be the
corner stones of that process. Yet Wes knows that
instilling the right philosophies in his players is of
equal importance. Whatever his team faces, as long as
they stick together and keep there heads above the
water, things will work themselves out. Victory in
basketball, as in life, is not something that comes
easy. But Wes realizes that those who are willing to
fight hard enough for it will, in the end, know the
triumph of high achievement.
Be positive, special, work hard, think, look and act
like a winner… because that is what it takes to be a
champion!
Basketball,
as with most sports, is a game of challenges. Every
individual who plays basketball, regardless of their god
given talents, must at some point in their careers
confront adversity in order to progress. More often then
not, hard work and persistence is the winning formula to
break through it. Yet sometimes a player is faced with a
form of challenge that cannot simply be overcome with
mere work ethic. 
