Meet Riley: she loves basketball, but last Saturday her team lost the big game and she missed the very last shot. Coach Mac and her growing buddy Sprout are here to help. This is the story of how Riley trains the one thing most players never do: the mind game.
The storyteller reads to you. Just tap the big button!
Follow Sprout through Riley's three weeks of practice: every part is a training move for the mind game.
Word Power
Tap each word. Then, if you want, say one out loud.
Now YOU say it: “I can’t do it… YET!”
Say it out loud, loud enough that Sprout can hear you!
🏅 Champion Meter
Do each part to grow. 0/9
Riley’s Three Weeks to the Rematch
Read the part. Try the move. Train the mind game.
Part 1
The Big Game
“See? You can’t do this.”
Saturday. The big game. The score is close, and in the last seconds the ball comes to Riley for the shot that could tie it. She shoots… and misses. Her team loses. On Monday her shoulders slump. “I let everybody down. I’m just not good at basketball.” And right on cue, the Doubt says, “See? You can’t do this.”
Sprout says: Big feelings come first, before we fix anything. Tap to see what everyone is feeling.
What is everyone feeling?
Say it: “Feelings first. Fixing second.”
Part 2
Calm the Alarm
Riley’s face is hot and her chest is tight. That’s her body’s alarm bell. It goes off fast, before she can think clearly. Before Riley answers the Doubt, she takes a breath.
Sprout says: Reset with Riley. Breathe in slow through your nose… and let it out even slower through your mouth. Feel the alarm get quiet.
Reset with Riley
Say it: “Calm first. Then I answer the Doubt.”
Part 3
Flip It with YET
The Doubt talks in full sentences. “I’m not good at basketball.” “This is too hard.” “I’ll always miss.” Coach Mac hears it and grins. “Add one small word: the one from Word Power.”
Sprout says: Flip each thought. Watch what YET does to it.
Tap a thought to flip it
Say it: “The Doubt hates the word YET.”
Part 4
Losses Are Clues
Coach Mac pulls up the video of Saturday’s game. Riley wants to look away. Losing can feel like the end. But Coach Mac says something different: “A loss isn’t the end. It’s a lesson. Let’s find the clues.”
Sprout says: Every miss hides a clue. Tap to find the clues, then see what Riley trains.
Tap a clue
Say it: “A loss is a clue, not the end.”
Part 5
Ask Your Coach
Riley’s shot still feels off. And asking for help feels scary, like saying, “I’m not good enough.” But Coach Mac has coached a hundred players through this exact thing. Champions ask.
Sprout says: Pick a strong question for Coach Mac. Real questions grow real answers.
Pick a strong question
Say it: “Champions ask.”
Part 6
Real Champions Grew Too
Coach Mac points to the wall of champions. “Every one of them lost, too,” he says. “Not one of them was only a natural.”
Sprout says: You’re in good company, Riley. Tap each champion and hear how they grew.
Tap a champion
Say it: “They lost, they grew, and so can I.”
Part 7
The Big Game, Again
Rematch day. Riley is on the court, heart pounding. Early on, she misses her first shot, and the other team races ahead. The Doubt is right there: “It’s happening again. Sit down. Why bother?” What should Riley do?
Sprout says: This is the biggest moment of all. A bounce-back move keeps Riley in the game. Pick the one she’d be proud of.
Choose Riley’s move
Part 8
Best Game Yet
Riley settles down: feet set, steady breath, eyes up. She doesn’t score every basket. But she plays the best game of her life: smart passes, a shot that finally falls, and she never stops trying. “Champions are built,” Riley thinks. “And I’m building mine.”
Sprout says: Look at everything that grew in three weeks. I grew a whole plant! Tap the effort receipts.
Tap the effort receipts
Say it: “Effort is how I earn it.”
Part 9
Coach the Next Kid
A few weeks later, at the park court, a younger kid misses a shot and mutters, “I’ll never be good. I’m just not a baller.” Riley knows that voice: it’s the Doubt, same as Day 1. Her whole journey was practice for this exact moment.
Sprout says: This is the best part of growing: passing it on. Pick what Riley says.
Pick what Riley says
Say it: “Pass the power.”
Story complete
🏆 You trained the mind game with Riley and Sprout, all nine moves! You earned your Champion badge, and look how big Sprout grew!
And here’s the secret: the mind game isn’t just for basketball. It works anywhere something feels hard: a game, a tricky reading page, a rough day.
Want to say it one more time, like a champion? “I can’t do it… YET!” You can record and hear yourself, or just say it out loud, your choice.
Say it out loud, loud enough that Sprout can hear you!
Tell a grown-up: ask me what YET means.
For Coaches & Families
What this builds (transformative SEL): Agency (“I can do it”).
This comic turns a sports-psychology lesson into a kid-sized story. Riley loses a game, learns to calm the alarm, flip “can’t” with YET, read losses as clues, ask her coach, meet real champions who grew, make one real bounce-back choice, play her best game yet, and pass the lesson on: the mind game that builds champions.
Research basis: It draws on Carol Dweck’s mindset research and the deliberate-practice findings (Anders Ericsson) that skill grows mostly through focused effort, not fixed, inborn talent.
The champions are real and factual. Michael Jordan, Sheryl Swoopes, and Wilma Rudolph are presented with accurate, well-documented stories, framed around the work they kept doing. The illustrations are stylized, anonymous athletes, not depictions of these individuals.
Try at home / practice: after each part, ask your athlete for one real example from their own week. Catch them using a “can’t” phrase and add “yet” together.
This is a practice tool for rehearsing skills, not therapy, counseling, or a clinical service.
🧑🏫 For grown-ups: a companion practice for the adults in this child’s corner: Coaching the Loss.
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If your child records their voice for the “say it” moment, the recording lives only in the moment on the device: it is never saved or uploaded, and it is gone when the page closes. Recording is always optional; your child can simply say it out loud instead. The read-aloud narration uses a recorded storyteller voice and only reads the comic, never your child.