One rainy night in November, I arrived to the church gym for my first basketball practice of the season. As I walked in the doors creaked and you could smell the gym floor. As I already heard the basketballs hitting the ground, bouncing up and down. My friends Brittany and Destiny walked in right behind me through the door. That was when we realized we were the only girls surrounded by all guys. As practice came to a start we began to run, it felt like we were never going to stop. Up and down the court as we ran suicides, you could hear the squeaking of shoes as we went from the next line back and then on to the next. Before we started scrimmaging, the two captains were boys. Brittany, Destiny, and I stood in amazement as we were the last three standing there. You could see by their expressions they didn’t want any of us on either team. You could see them mumble, “Do we have to pick them”. We finally were out on teams and ready to finish practice. My team put me in a position that they never had to pass me the ball and I wasn’t in the way. So, I just went along with the practice not knowing at the time how this would be something shown throughout the whole season. As the practice came to an end we huddled together, and talked about the next practice and our first game on Saturday. As we left you could hear the boys talking. Saying things like, “Why are they on our team?”, and “They are going to make us lose”. We just kept going to our cars and went home. Thursday rolled
Soon as I got off the bus, I rushed into my house, threw my book bag and jacket off onto the floor and ran to my room to get dressed for my game. When I finished getting dressed, my teammates and I went over to my friend Josiah’s house and hung out for a little before the game. We went out to eat, played, joked and even played a little pick-up game on his hoop in front of his house. As we left to go to the game, inside the van I started to get more excited and more nervous. I plug in my headphones to block out the noise and to get hyped up for the game that we would be playing in just one more hour. When we arrive at Boo Williams Sport Complex, where we were going to be playing at, I saw a variety of teams playing and there were so many different basketball courts.Watching how good these teams were made me think about how good the teams we were going to be playing. After I got to thinking about it, I was extremely nervous to the point where I thought I was going to throw up. The gym smelled like a bunch of basketballs and sweat, it smelled very bad. As we walk to our court to warm up I finally get to see the team that we were playing, at first sight they didn’t look too good. After warming up, my coach calls the starting lineup and calls my name for it. At tip-off I got more and more confident the more I touched the ball. Only about three minutes in I shoot my first three pointer and it goes in. As the game comes to the end my coach names me the MVP and I finished the game with nine points and no turnovers, we beat the opposing team 37 to 21. Our jovial game ended as a big
It all began on November 3, 2015 during my first middle school basketball tournament. The grey brick walls of the gymnasium looking more like a prison than a school. The school’s “Lincoln Park Elementary School” sign had graffiti and missed a couple letters from the name. The court was terribly small, but we began by playing the superb team of Jam on It. We were blown out and I headed back up to my mom and dad in the parent filled stands. The game wasn’t even fun to play and we looked like third graders playing them. I looked up to my parents as sad as could be.
“Come on guys,” I yelled. I heard the screech of the referee’s whistle. Rushing to the bench, I heard the referee call out “Timeout, Heat.” Everything was on the line and our team’s championship hopes, being foremost on our team’s minds, was all coach could scream about. “I’m not going to tell you how to play basketball,” he yelled out. “That’s your job. I’m just going to say that right now, to us, this is a championship game. If we win this, we move on to the championship. If not, at least let us fall valiantly.” That got the whole team riled up as we rushed back onto the court. The crowd, encouraging as always, yelled out their approval on the fact that we were giving it our all. With just sixteen seconds left in the game and our team down by four, something special had to happen or we were done for the season.
Basketball was my favorite sport growing up. I’ve played since I was little and I still play the game today. I played basketball at my elementary school, St. Cecilia, from Kindergarten till 8th Grade and also played AAU basketball for about 2 years before entering High School. Going into my freshmen year of High School, the first sport I played was basketball. Tryouts began in about the start of November and ended about 2 weeks after. I had made the Freshmen A team. I was excited and as the season progressed, we didn’t win many games but I still had fun playing. Nearing the end of the season, golf was another sport coming up that I also wanted to try and play. I say “try and play” because at the time, I was also going to play AAU basketball. I had set in my mind that I was going to play basketball for all of my four years of high school, but my parents pushed me to tryout for golf. When the basketball season ended, golf tryouts started. Tryouts lasted for about 2 weeks, and I made the JV team. When I found out I made the team, I was very surprised. I hadn’t put in the hard work as others before tryouts came around, but the coach saw potential in me and that I can become a great player. The coach saw so much potential in me, that every week, I kept progressing in skill and fine tuning my mechanics. Halfway through the season, about 4 or 5 weeks after I made the team, my coach gave me the chance to play with the Varsity Golf team for a couple days. I was excited and eager to
When I was younger, basketball was all I wanted to play, it just looked like so much fun. In fifth grade I had my parents sign me up for CYB, then in sixth grade I tried out for middle school basketball and played all the way up until ninth grade. In middle school when I was in eighth grade I was awarded the captain position and that helped me build leadership and responsibility. All of the players especially the younger ones knew they could always come to me at any time if they needed anything or help with anything. High school basketball was a lot different than middle school. In middle school I was one of the star players so I played a lot but in high school that changed. I sat the bench a lot that taught me patience and understanding even
Four kids on the team, all of which had played at least four years, were a grade higher than the rest of us and were going into high school. According to IHSAA rules, any player on a high school team could not play or practice with a travel ball team. This meant they could only play with us after their season ended in May. The second problem arose when our coach decided not to return. His son was going into high school, and he didn’t have the time anymore. So we hunted for a new coach, all the way until we found one three days before tryouts. Once again, I looked forward to a season with the Tribe. But when tryouts came, only 10 kids showed up – enough for a team, but not enough to compete. The 14u Tribe season was not to take
Our 8th grade basketball team were putting on a show! Opponents would enter bobcat territory where our team would play a hard fight to take another win. Every game spectators are left in astonishment after witnessing determination, willingness, and our spirit until the clock expires down to its last second.
I grew up as an older sibiling who really had no one to express myself with. There are kids who live in secluded areas or just don't have the social skills to find other friends. Organized activites changed my perspective as a young child on how to actually have fun with my other peers. I personally liked playing basketball and was quite decent at the sport, I quickly developed friends who enjoyed the sport as much as I did. After awhile I started hanging out with a variety of different kids who were mutual friends between my friends and I.
I do believe that it is very important to be involved with not only your school but also
“Friday night games with huge crowds. That atmosphere is hard to beat.” Senior Hunter Martin is playing through his fourth and final year on the Varsity basketball team. For two years in a row, he has been the starting foward. “Basketball hasn’t always been easy but I’m really glad I stuck through it all four years,” Martin said. Looking back on his accomplishments, Martin said that his favorite memory was was win the team won districts his sophomore year. “Nothing can compare to that moment of celebrating with my team.”
On a saturday morning the philomath basketball team had a basketball game very early in the morning. I went in the gym and saw my team warming up and I remember looking up from tying my shoes and just see what I thought was a NBA team. When I was walking over to the lay up line I heard there shoes shaking the ground as they would walk and jump the ball not even touching the rim when they would shoot a three and the two post that were 6,2 I know that doesn’t sound talk but for us in 7 grade that was tall. We go back to are bench as we hudl up and I remember my Dad whispers in my ear just post up strong the first time and i promise you he will get scared and not want to play. I remember looking at are crowd and seeing my brother and all his friends laughing and not even looking at the game in front of them.
We all awaited to hear the starting line up, I was nervous to know if I was going to start. Rumor had it that if you didn't start you didn't play much. Finally after what had felt like an hour. He said that the starting 5 was Anderson, Ronan, Me, Andrew, and Tyler. We were ready to go, we had done way too much practice to lose our first game. The crowd was silent as anderson came up for the tip off I was shaking substiantly as was our team because we were all nervous and didn't want to mess up at our first cornerstone game. Tweet we were off and Anderson won the tip and passed it to me I then passed it to Tyler and he scored. We then stole the ball again and I scored. This happened repeatedly with different people. We ended up winning by 60 points. The next practice we were all messing around and not trying much because we were all still juiced about our past
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.
My basketball team had just finished traveling Connecticut winning game after game to end up finally making it to the state championships, coming in second place by a small margin. I was energized and felt insurmountable. This attitude quickly changed however, as a result of undertaking a new sport in the fall season of my freshman year: cross country.
If someone told me something terrible would happen to me during basketball practice on that cold November night, I never would’ve believed them.