First Field Goals

My biography starts with me, a nervous little boy born in Denver Colorado. This is the Biography of my very first AAU Basketball game. Going to school at six fifty-five in the morning on Friday, all I could think about was the fact that I was going to be playing in my first AAU Basketball game in just 11 more hours. Walking through the halls of my Middle School, Grafton my heart raced through every single class knowing that I was getting closer and closer to my first ever AAU basketball game. While the day went on, i had very mixed emotions, I was ready to play, meaning I was confident in myself that i was going to do good, I was excited to be playing and I was also nervous because there’s always the thought

My basketball team and I were going head to head against Lamar Bruni Middle School for the second time that season. The parents loved to cheer us on and capture so many pictures of us, they were our cheerleaders all season long. We were 5-0 at the time and losing that game was not an option for any of my teammates nor the coaches. Unfortunately, I was not able to give it my all in that game due to me twisting my ankle in the third quarter.

After tryouts the coach brought us all over 1 by 1 and told us if we made the team. My heart was pumping while i waited for him to call me over. He yelled my name and I ran over, I had made the team. After the news I was determined to greatly improve my skills throughout the season. Each practice was hard and the games were much more intense than my previous years. The warm ups were all thought out and made us really get our shooting and passing on point. Then the national anthem was played and it really gets you in a great game mindset. After my first game on varsity I realized how much better everyone

Being invited to the LSAM State basketball tournament was kind of a big deal. This was my first year playing on the 7-8th grade team at my middle school. Going into it we were heavy favorites to win, but that all changed after our first game. Standing on the side of the lane for a free throw, I could feel the cold sweat dripping down my face. My coach yelling “Andy get the rebound”, which actually meant to run a play after the shot. Down two points, I watch the ball bounce off the rim and I leap towards it. Grabbing the leathery ball, I hurl it to my teammate who is down the court. The play is executed perfectly. Our best shooters is spotted up on the three point line. He puts up the shot and the crowd goes silent. In slow motion, I watch

I sat with my head sunken into my hands, my eyes were burning, and my head was spinning. I was sitting on the bench during the final minutes of what would be the last basketball game that I would ever play. I had played basketball for over fifteen years, and I had never imagined how I would feel once it was all over. My high school team had made it to the region semi-finals during my senior year, and we had to play Bearden. It turned out to be my last basketball game, because my team had lost. I never realized how much basketball had impacted my life until that game. I knew that basketball was important to me, but I never thought that it would lead me to where I am today, especially a single game.

was 9 years old and 4th grade had just started which meant that my first official year of basketball was around the corner and everything had to be perfect. I would wake up in the mornings before school and I would go shoot come home after school and shoot again, it was the most practice I had ever done, in one thing, in my entire life. The first practice started in October and I was so overly excited I grabbed a ball and started my routine 5 lay-ups and 10 free throws. I knew my coach better than anyone, He was my father, so when he blew the whistle, I ran to the line and prepared for up and down sprints. We only ran for about 15 minutes, but it felt like days the way he ran us giving us only a few water breaks The entire team was wheezing and we were barely a quarter way through practice. I hear my Dad yell lay-up lines and I get excited because this is something if practiced so hard

two-point field goals and defensive rebounds? Of particular importance to the authors is the integration of metacognitive skills (in reading) into the coaching models and game day job assignments.

We entered the stadium and found our courtside seats, which was a first experience for myself. The players’ sweat found my arm a few times and it truly felt like I was apart of the game. From hearing the students cheer on their team, to the constant talking of the players, the stadium was filled with noises of pride. They prevailed and it made for an amazing, first time experience at a Marquette basketball game. After the game, I remember

After my first year of playing I got better and better. That and I ended up playing a year up because my team was not on the level of basketball that I was on. And we would play we got to the championship and we won 26 to 39. Me and my cousins were on the same team because we needed to have a team that we could play with for fun and we won that league. My cousin Kiara and me where on the same time and I passed her the ball and she broke a fingernail and was screaming and rolling on the ground. And that week of practice we went to sonic because we played so go.

We pulled up to the school and as a team we all gathered on the bus closed our eyes and prayed. Right after we got our bags and headed over to the school as a team. We opened the Sunray gym doors, the girls that were already there were giving us the dirtiest looks on earth. We knew that we knew way better than to give them that look as well, so we just smiled and kept on walking like if nothing had bothered us. We found our locker room, changed, walked out ready to play our first game. Our

I felt a hand pat me on the shoulder. My coach told me to go into the game. I walked to the scorer’s table, kneeled, and closed my eyes. It was during my sophomore year, close to the end of my spring AAU season. It was the final tournament of the spring season. We had lost two games already and it felt like we were entering our third straight loss. All of my teammates were demoralized on the bench and wanted to go home. While I was at the scorer’s table with my eyes closed, I envisioned the many different things I had worked on to perfect my game.

After our summer of practicing, our first game was here. I didn’t do much in the first few games because the teams we faced weren’t that good. Eventually though, we ended up facing more teams like TCA, USJ, JCS, Lexington, and St. Mary’s. I got to play in each of these games along with 7 other games.

It had finally arrived. The first game of my senior year of high school football. I had worked harder than I ever thought I could to reach that moment. When I put on my pads and prepared to step out onto the field to

Soon enough the first game came around. We started to warm up and I was shaking. The alarm would go off in 2 minutes which would mean game time. The alarm felt like two seconds. I was so nervous I felt like I had 1 million butterflies in my stomach. I did not start this game so I had a little time to get focused. My job was to stand on the left wing of the court and try to score or get an assist off of one of our plays. The point guard dribbled the ball down the court, and in- between every bounce I felt my heart-beat fifteen times. The point guard

I had shown up on campus not knowing anybody but instantly made 65 friends because of the freshman football team. Looking back now, it was not a big deal to play freshmen football, but it was life or death for me every game when I played. I remember one game where we had lost by two points at the very last second and I just lay down right on the field busting into tears. Grass in my eyes, face down on the field bawling my eyes out like I had just lost a million dollars or something. It meant that much to me. I was fortunate enough to play junior varsity basketball while most of my friends were playing on the two freshman teams. I think practicing with guys who were a year older taught me to play with a chip on my shoulder and compete. In the beginning they treated me like they could push me around. It is quite comedic now that some of those older kids eventually became some of my best friends. I remember one time I was going up for a layup during a night practice and one my teammates came out of nowhere and put his elbow right in my ribs and fouled me hard. We ended up getting into a shoving match but shook hands afterwards and treated it like men. He eventually ended up spending nights at my house and being my study partner. Academically I struggled with adjusting to the workload. I thought I could just show up class and listen and pass doing that because that is what I did in middle school. I was doing decent enough but not good enough for my standards but I figured it was only freshmen year and I would be