Personal Narrative: My Basketball Career

Our first game was at 9, but the players were supposed to be there at 8, so I thought that I should be there. Because it was a round robin, when I got to the gym East Grand and Steamboat were playing. I was beginning to get nervous because I did not want to let down the players that I was coaching. When the game that was going on reached the fourth quarter, I took my players to the locker room and went over our game plan. The game before ours ended, and my players began to warm up. I was getting more nervous now; this was the first time I had ever coached, and I did not feel like I was qualified enough to be coaching. Sure, I have been playing basketball since third grade, but I did not think that I should be coaching. The game started, and I soon realized that my patience level was not as high as I thought. I never was mean or yelled negatively; I tried to constructively help the players. During the whole game we were doing really well, and I was super happy. The players were running their offense and doing well on defense. During the end of the game I was feeling really well because I knew we were gonna

We ended up losing the game 19-0, while we got dominated most of the game. But then after the game when everybody shook the coaches hands, they told all older kids and running backs how great they were, but when I went up, he didn’t even say anything. Not even a little “Good job this year.” I walked off that field hoping I never had to deal with that coach again. And my wish was granted, as this year we got one of the High School coaches who played everybody fairly and linemen were not at all overlooked. He helped us and even put the game on us sometimes. It had more pressure, but I loved it. I was visible

That quarter I scored 10 points 2 rebounds and had 4 assists 2 steals and one block the score was 19 to 33 are coach Bennett told us to keep playing hard and keep doing what we are doing. I was guarding the 6,2 guy when he got the ball he did some move that was so fast I didn’t know what happened so I jump up to see if I can block it and when I came down the whistle goes and I got a foul that was my 3rd one in a row so my Dad sent Brody in for me and told me that I need to Guard my man and apparently I didn’t do

As football season was starting, the freshman cheer squad had to get many practices in for halftime routines. My coach, who shall not be named, was 18 and was extremely immature and extremely unprofessional. At our first game, she got mad at us for being late even though the game was in Folsom and there was major traffic. And while we were cheering underneath the boiling hot sun, she was eating her raspberries and cookies with her boyfriend. But anyways to get to the point my coach didn’t even know my name. I was the only girl who she would forget. I mean… hello, it took her till the end of the football season to get it

Basketball time. Halfway through the season. It was game night. I was nervous. I always got nervous for basketball games. So after school I’m getting all my stuff ready and I’m putting on my basketball uniform. I had to get fired up. So I listened to some Kanye West. Ok. I was ready. My mom drove me to my game. I put my bag in the locker room. I go out on the court and warm up with the other girls. I’m getting even more nervous. BUUZZZ. That’s the buzzer. Time to go bring it in. Our coach talks to us and tells us the play to run first. I wasn’t a starter or anything. So I sat on the bench waiting to go in. The jump ball had started. Our team got the ball. During half of the first quarter, Coach told me to go in. I went in. I did my part and I played ok.

We were at the gym for my first basketball game. I was a bit nervous but mostly excited. I walked onto the quart, shortest kid out there. Every kid out there looked like they wanted to eat me up because of my size. But there was one kid out there who towered over everyone, he stared at me with a glare trying to intimidate me but I was staring right back at him. The ref said it was was the other team’s ball so we had to play defense first. So they threw the ball in and the game began. I went up to guard the kid who had the ball but the ref told me to scoot back and to wait until he got past half quart. So when the kid got past half quart, I played tight defense. As aoon as I was about to steel the ball he passed it. The kid who had it shot

Basketball my 6th grade year was rough. It was my very first year ever playing sports. Since I went to a small elementary school everyone made the team and I was the only 6th grade student that joined I was so nervous the first practice my hands were shaking way faster than I could run. The rest of the girls were eighth graders that had a ball thrown at them the second the exited the womb; let me just tell you that season sucked.

It was a typical day in the McClain household. Everybody was woken up at exactly 7.00 am. Mom said the prayer and then everybody went to school. Little did they know, a massacre was going to occur that night.

The buzzer sounds, ending the third quarter and I look up at the scoreboard. 39 to 47, we’re up. Five of us sit down and listen to coach talk about how important defense is to win games. A second buzzer sounds two minutes later, telling us it’s time to finish what we’ve started. We walk out to the court waiting for the fourth and final quarter to

I was having a great game, fourteen points, and 3 assists in that first half, working my way to a double double. I was four for four in the first half from the three point arch. I eventually cooled off in the second half, and my team was down by 5 with a minute and some to go. As the clock dwindled down, I knew I needed to hit a big shot. Thirty seconds left… I turned the ball over. They came down and hit a clutch layup. Down by 1 now I knew we would win this game, I got the ball and went to the rack. I heard the whistle… Foul, two shots. I made one of the two to tie up the game. They came down with 15 seconds left and took a bad shot, I got the rebound and the game was in my hands. It was win or go home, I felt the sweat dripping onto me and the ball, the fans on the edge of

Our team was coming off an undefeated season and the JV team before us went 5-5 with the same coaches we were about to have. But I started the season with an open mind, hoping to again go undefeated. With Jack being my position coach, we spent a lot of time together and immediately a bond was formed. His coaching philosophy was always to be a friend not a parent, to teach not to yell and I took this to heart. The feeling I was being respected and not treated like a stereotypical teenager was eye opening to me. I was able to have full conversations with Coach Jack as if he was a very wise friend of mine, which is the best way I can describe him. This taught me something valuable, you can have a conversation with anyone no matter the age as long as there is a mutual respect. Throughout the season Coach Jack treated me as a student of the game, a padawan if you will. He would always explain to me his thoughts about coaching and explain a play call to me to make sure I understood all the aspects. All of these explanations seemed to follow the same phrase, “When you become a coach...” At the time I didn’t know coaching was the career I wanted to pursue, but Coach Jack did. He saw in me love for the game and a passion to stay involved in the great game of football, even after my playing days were over. After one season on JV, both Coach Jack and I moved up to the varsity level my following year. For the third year in a row our team went undefeated in the regular season, though we stumbled in the semi-finals of playoffs and were knocked out of the championship race. All that loss did was fuel our fire for our final season. I however was not aware that I had already played my final season of football. Diving for a football in the beginning of my senior summer, I broke my wrist. One surgery and several months in a cast kept me sidelined from competing with my team. Although

The halftime break was over, and we started playing again. My teammate passed the ball to me, I passed it to my other teammate, and he made the basket. The score was eighteen to ten, and we were catching up slowly. The other team had the ball, and they passed it from person to person. They stopped, and passed it to their big guy. He looked like a tenth grader. As soon as I even thought of that, he was taking a happy stroll through our defenses, almost trampled several of my teammates, and I tried to block his shot, but I couldn’t. My teammates and I needed some quick points, so we had to go for three pointers.

“X!”, I shouted. This play was supposed to get the ball to me to shoot a three-pointer in the corner. We ran the play to perfection. I caught the ball, jumped up and shot it. I watched the ball as it sunk through the hoop as I landed back down on the hardwood floor. I ran back on defense guarding their best player. He called for a screen and drove to the hoop for an easy layup. The game went back and forth like this for the entire time until they got the lead. Next time down the court it was our ball. I fired the basketball like a gun at my teammate, pass the defense, who caught the ball and threw up a bad shot. My coach called a timeout and scolded him and put him on the bench.

My first day of practice, I trotted onto the field feeling like the man. I thought that as the tallest and fastest person on the defense that I could single-handedly make every play thrown at us. From the first hike, I realized that I could NOT handle it all by myself. The first play was a run right between the Tackles (a run straight up the middle with the two biggest running backs on the team.) I was knocked back both physically and mentally. My coach came up to me with an ass full of fire and a mouth full of chew that would projectile along with the spit that came when he would yell. “Are you crazy or stupid, son?” were the exact words that he told me. He told me that I would never be able to make that play all by myself. My job

My first year on the team went fairly well I scored two goals and got a fairish amount of playing time and the coach was great…when we were winning. We lost out to Nottaway in the Quarter-final of the James River District. The coach might have thought we won with the way I acted because I felt like the luckiest person in the world because I got to play the full game. The rest of the team was sad, frustrated, and one or two even cried due to our 3-0 loss to the team we beat 4-0 earlier in the season. Instead of consoling us or saying we tried our best the coach yelled and said we played terrible, which we did but we did not need someone to tell us that. That was