Personal Narrative: The Ability To Play The Game

Four, maybe five German soldiers surrounded me. They were moving in faster than a pack of starving wolves, and I was their downed prey. There were flying bullets, dark smoke, and explosions everywhere. I was oppressed and knew that this was finally it. All my hard work was about to disappear into a plume of smoke. I commenced raising my rifle, and then in the midst of this chaotic scene there was this ever so subtle giggle over the headset. I look upwards dumbfounded to see a firestorm of bombs hailing all around me, and enveloping my entire section of the battlefield obliterating everything. It was my brother Chase piloting this monstrous desert-sand colored beast of a bomber, which just unleashed utter devastation on the opposing

It was a dark thursday night in April. The sky was clear enough to see the moon shining brightly along with many small circular diamonds. I’m in a dark blue Avalanche, being driven to a baseball diamond. I play for the MIlwaukee Brewers on a little league level. It’s my last game of the season, and I can’t wait for the umpire to say the words “Play Ball” (which states that the game has begun).

Over my years of school, one big influence on me has always been sports. Ever since a young age, I have always enjoyed playing and watching sports. In my four years in high school, I have fell in love with the sport of lacrosse.

I woke up and took one bite out of my pop tart but that one bite was all I could eat. My legs were shaking, and my heart was pounding. My dad told me, “It is a true honor to even make it this far so go out there and have some fun.” Once I heard this statement, I knew I was ready to go. I arrived at school and boarded the bus. The car ride was an hour and fifteen minutes of hearing the squeaking of the wheel on the bus. My teammates were getting their heads ready for the big game.

“Play ball.” Says the umpire as the Senior Rams take the field and the Hempstead Mustangs were getting ready to bat. This was it. This was our final chance to make all of our hard work pay off, and achieve the one main goal we all had in mind, state.

The game felt like a million hours left in the last quarter of the game for b-team. We waited on the sidelines for b-team’s game to explode as, we watched. The a-team started to drink water and stretch a little for the game.

It was August 28th 2013 , I knew the next day would be the biggest day of my life. All throughout the week, all I had on my mind was the big game. When I woke up on that Friday morning chills would run through my body a bolt of electricity. Knowing I’m one day away from one of the biggest games of my life. The winner has a spot in the playoffs. I was so excited and anxious that I went for a run around my neighborhood because I was filled with so much energy. When I got back from my run I had a creamy peanut butter and nutella sandwich. The best sandwich I’ve ever conceived to this day. Next thing I had to do was take my shower and get all my stuff prepared for the big game.

The cheer of the crowd and the laughter of the kids in the air were the only things reminding me that it was just a game. Eight and a half innings, seven pitching changes by both teams, twenty-seven runs scored in all, and we were still losing. The sweat came dripping off my nose and forehead like melting ice. My eyes stung, and I could barely keep them open due to the bright rays of the sun beating down on the dirt and grass, the baseball diamond seemingly larger than it had been eight and a half innings ago. My coach’s whisper rang through my ears. “Only if you think you can,” he said so softly that I had to almost lean in to hear what he said. I was on third base, with the winner of the game was being decided by one out. We had made

The lunch bell rings and I am on my phone checking the latest updates to the game. Instead of meeting with a teacher or getting started on homework during the free period, I spend it researching the tweaks in a few lines of code that will change my life for the next two weeks. The lines of code are insignificant, like the game itself, but I am absorbed in the game and the game owns me. In lieu of participating in activities after school, I rush home to continue progress in a virtual world. A world that can be turned of with the flick of a switch. Life becomes secondary to the game. My eyes burn into the night as I force myself to hurriedly finish the Tale of Two Cities reading before bed, at one o’clock in the morning.

One cold winter afternoon, an 11 year old boy named Ben had a basketball game against the Brooklyn Nets. Ben wasn’t good at foul shots, and he knew that so he wanted to get better at them. Later that day, Ben went outside into his driveway to practice shooting foul shots. Brooke and Hunter also came to help Ben shoot. Ben made four out of the ten shots.

For 11 years, my father was my soccer coach and before every soccer game he would make the team say the first rule of soccer: “The first rule of soccer is to … always have fun!”

My stomach churned like a whirlpool as I stepped onto the field. Today we were going to play our first game in the flag football tournament that Mr. Bentley, the elementary school PE teacher organized. LSU, our team, versus UCLA, our opponents. Mr. Bentley even had us choose college football team names to make it more fun. I quickly strapped the flags along my waist, following my teammates example.

He was buzzing with excitement as the coach was reading off the starting roster, Tim was bursting with anticipation as he read “Goalie, Tim” Tim’s teammates started to shout in celebration as they knew he was the best choice. But Tim soon realized who they were playing; the south city Spartans. They were undefeated for the whole season and had narrowly beat us in a penalty shootout in the last game of the season to decide who was number one for the state tournament. Tim was buzzing as he knew he had the chance to take revenge on not only the Spartans at the state level, but Harry, their captain and striker, bitter enemy of the whole team of inner city Cowboys.

These are just a few of the professional values that best describe me, and that I feel I can bring to any situation in life. I am a multicultural, first-generation, college student that was raised in a lower working class family. Since day one, I’ve been told that I couldn’t rise to many different occasions, or that I wouldn’t amount to anything. But time after time I have faced adversity head on, and I have come out successful.

When I was young I never realized how significant sports are. I never saw or got to experience the bond that held an individual to their teammates, the teammates to their coaches, and the fans to their favorite teams. Sports are all around me, all the time. My father, being the middle aged arab man that he was, didn’t watch an abundance of American sports like all my friends dad’s did, but he still managed to catch a good amount of football games here and there. I would hear the T.V. playing, the big first down decisions being called, the crowds extreme involvement in the game. I would hear the basketball hitting the court, the shoes squeaking on quick turns. These sounds all came to be very familiar to me. At times I’d wonder why I wasn’t in any sports. My siblings were never in any sports either. Maybe it just wasn’t our forte? The Hasans didn’t play sports, the Hasan's got good grades and played important instrument roles in the band. I learned to accept this philosophy for a very long time In my life.