Personal Narrative: My First Basketball

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

“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 a new experience to me a few years ago, but i never realized I was going to love it. When I was younger, I’ve always wanted to play the sport of basketball, and I got my opportunity to play when I was in fifth grade at Monte Vista Elementary.

After years of basketball taking up most of my time, I knew that at some point I was going to need to stop. What I did not know, was when that time was going to come. This past year, I have made the bold choice to stop playing. If I played one more year, I felt as if it might ruin basketball for me. Basketball has always been the way I was able to forget about everything going on around me and just focus on one positive thing.

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.

My basketball is one of a kind because I received this great gift on Christmas day from my dad. What was so awesome that the rockets were playing! First, he gave me a wrapped box and I said in my mind ‘’what is it’’ second, I opened it and I was the supreme logo (a very expensive brand), and I thought wait could it be a basketball third, I opened the box and I see a supreme basketball to my knowledge. Then I see a signature and I asked who’s signature is it my dad said ‘’James Harden’’ my jaw dropped. I was so happy like a child on Christmas day.

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.

I've been waiting for this moment for so long. I watched my brother play basketball on a real team, and now it was my turn. I was going to play in the Upward league, but my first step to playing Upward was an evaluation, where I could show my skills to the coaches. I finished the evaluations with my head held high and had done what I thought was a stellar job. Now, it was my turn to play on the court. I was more than ready.

My basketball career was one to remember, I had a lot of coaches I liked and a handful I didn’t like. But one coach in particular, stuck with me because of one terrible game I had. I remember the day like it was yesterday, we were playing West aka the rich snobs of Billings. I didn’t play much in the first half but when I did play, it wasn’t up to his standards I guess. After making a great read on the defence I ended up turning the ball over. Imagine this, I had the ball at the top of the key, the defence in a 2-3 zone, I had a teammate on each side of me, spread out to perfection, and one man in front of me at the free throw line. I passfaked to my right and the defence jumped at it trying to steal the pass as this was happening, I tried to make a no look pass to the guy at the free throw line

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.

I was just swinging my bat, over and over again, with no thoughts in my head. The methodical movement of my bat and the sound of the breeze it makes, was calming to me. My mind was blank as I was just going through my on deck routine. But like always, a few thoughts slipped in. You are going to strike out again, for the third time, my mind told me, You are going to let the whole team down, and lose the game. The championship game. I battled the little devil me on my left shoulder, who was feeding my brain these awful thoughts, by repeating an encouraging phrase. You got this Ashley, you got this Ashley. Feeling better about stepping up to the plate, I look up, only to feel my entire body fill with dread. The catcher was just standing up a little

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.

My heart was beating 1,000 beats a minute,I was so frantic I didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t know anything about volleyball yet I still tried out. What was I thinking I knew I couldn’t do it but I still walked into that gym! It was the first day of tryouts and as soon as I got there I saw all these girls that knew a thing or two about volleyball . I suddenly got even more anxious and I felt like running out of that gym and forgetting this ever happened,but it was too late the coach yelled out “MARYLIN! Come here it’s your turn”. I walked up to them each step feeling heavier and heavier.soon The coaches were giving me instructions and I never knew what one word meant. “SPIKE IT!” The coach said aloud as I held the ball.BAM the

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.

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.