Personal Narrative: Zach's Journey

I walked into school to be greeted by a janitor vacuuming the floors. It was time to start thinking about the game and getting my focus level up. My pregame ritual wasn’t always the same beside for one thing, be the first to the locker room to have time to think to myself. Walking into the light blue and worn-down locker room it was almost like I could feel the emotion from all the players who had been there before myself. I was greeted by a wave of smell, the smell of victory, defeat, and pure hard work. It was quite musty but I was used to it and had grown accustomed to it. I sat myself down and began to think about how I would perform tonight and what I had to do in order to be victorious. I pictured myself going out onto the court and seeing all the fans packed into our old wooden bleachers. All I wanted to do was make them proud of the team they came to watch. I looked out the window to see the vehicles of my fellow teammates driving into our dirt parking lot. Soon, the locker room would no longer be quite and it would be filled with the shrieks, laughs, and giggles of my

I am reading Swagger by Carl Deuker and I finished the book. This book is about Jonas Dolan, a 17-year old basketball player that has moved to Seattle to start a new life. Not only does he have a spot on his new team, but he also needs to grind in the offseason to impress a coach that wants to give him a scholarship. When a new coach takes over coaching his high school team, Jonas starts playing well with the guys on his team. The new coach’s style of play is a lot like Jonas’, and the team started to enjoy spending time with the team. As everyone started getting comfortable with the new coach and new playing techniques, Coach Hartwell started getting too comfortable around the boys. He served them beer at a hotel they were staying at, and

Coach Steve Rocker is one of the most successful high school basketball coaches in Kentucky’s history. Coach Rocker was very successful in previous years. Strangely, this year was very different for him. For the first time in his professional life, he is falling short of his expectations, the community expectations, and the team’s expectations. His team lost a lot of games, but most importantly the boys had no motivation or desire to bring the team out of the rut they found themselves. His players have lost their will to win, their love for their teammates, and their passion to play. Coach Rocker’s motivational methods that have always worked before and resulted in success are now failing, and he doesn’t know why. He argues that his players have become selfish and bored with winning because they have been so successful in previous years. “And there’s no question that my guys have lost their drive to win because they’ve won so much in the past. Now all they want is individual ‘wins’…which just doesn’t cut it on a team” (Gongwer, 2010, p. 17).

October of 2015 arrives, Monte Vista Elementary school informed us that there are basketball tryouts and basketball season will come soon. I have been practicing non-stop after last year’s tournament. I had one goal that year, and it was to get to the championships. I tryout and impress the other players around me. A paper of the names who made

In the year 2013, Cam Cameron became the coordinator. Zach was his first quarterback at the university. He had remained underwhelming

Thus far, over his short NBA career, Minnesota Timberwolves point guard Zach LaVine has been known for one thing: his high-flying dunks. Ever since his days at UCLA, that is all people could talk about was his athleticism and high-flying acrobatics. However, its only for so long you can hold that moniker until people wonder is that all you can do?

In life, you encounter many situations and people that aid in molding you into the person you are meant to be. When these instances in time occur, we may not realize it, but looking back they made a huge impact on our lives. For the past four years, I have been a member of the Navarro Runnin’ Lady Panthers Basketball Team, and while the sport itself taught me many lessons and skills I can use to be successful, there was one coach that managed to do the same.

It is the first round of the Basketball State playoffs, and with eight seconds left, the talented Northwest team is down by three. The star point guard speed dribbles up the court, the tension on and off the court is immense, the pressure is even greater. Everyone during and prior to this game, had witnessed a season full of promise, and the consensus conclusion for most recognized this team as the best team to have ever come out Northwest High School. This was our best and likely only chance for success. So as the point guard puts the ball up, time nearly stops, it has a chance, but in like in life, the game of basketball is unforgiving, he misses. As most made their pre-conceived predictions of the future, or lack thereof, a young sophomore and his Junior Varsity teammates, we were inspired by our elders walking off the court, and the doubters going home. Bonded together, and we believed we were destine for something historical, and mythological outside our small circle. Thus two years later the 2016 Northwest Varsity Basketball team, the discourse community, where I developed relationships with the people I still call my brothers. A community which has shaped my work ethic, and has given me the knowledge of the amount of effort and work it takes to be successful. All of which was in efforts for a goal not even pronounced among our teammates, to us the future was still a mystery, only realized to us a one

As many people around the world know we have the privilege of having the #1 high school player in the nation, Lonzo Ball, attending our school and playing for our team. If you walked around the Chino Hills high school campus and asked each individual student if they knew who Lonzo Ball was, you would be very surprised at the results. Many people think that when you become popular you also become very arrogant and cocky well, the basketball team of Chino Hills High School has proved all of those people wrong. All of the boys on the basketball team have a great sense of respect and humility, you will never hear, “Look how great I am!” as Lonzo said in an interview with the Chino Hills High journalism, “This team only works because no one is selfish.

During the first pages of The Game, Zach, the hero of the story is dying. He suddenly wakes up and is in the body of a seventeen-year-old. This is because Zach lives in a world called Tygon, where at young age children are put into “The Game”. Zach is one of the lucky players who started as an orphan when all of the sudden he rockets into one of the top positions. He is picked up by a patron (sponsor), Brandon Strayne, the maker of The Game. Zach is seventeen and is turning eighteen in a few weeks, and he has two choices, he could play it safe and retire in a really good position, or he could risk it all and retire in the number one spot. This has only happened eleven other times in the thirty years of The Game. George Knight was an

The big question in the pre-season was whether or not new faces could fill the shoes of the graduated seniors. Since these players were all talented in their own ways, it seemed impossible. Fortunately, all of these positions were filled with young players that had determination and

The Hall of Fame for college basketball players was on the wall. It had just recently been updated after the Hall of Fame presentation of Saturday. I had just woken up feeling cold. I looked out the window of my dorm to see the dark, cloudy day outside with the rain pelting down on the window pane. I was still really tired after the late night of getting praised on my amazing basketball skills, finally I had been recognized and everyone was telling me that I needed to declare that I’m joining the NBA as soon as possible! I then declared for the NBA draft halfway through my season.

In the middle of June I’ll find myself on the football field drenched in sweat, hoping to make a “2-Peat”. I’ll be embraced by all the coaches and fellow players, we’ll all be like one big happy family. On game days the stands will be packed full of screaming fans, all confident that Monroe will win the game. After the win, the opposing team will leave with their heads held high, because we’re only good athletes, we don’t compare to the well rounded student-athletes at their school.

I am Zach Little, a sophomore in the computer science program. I am from Jefferson County, in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. I spend most of my free time creating music, singing, and playing the piano. I enjoy reading high fantasy novels such as Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series and Tad Williams’s Otherland. However, I also enjoy nonfiction about psychology, philosophy, history, and science. Also, I might have a slight obsession with video games. My career goal is to become a sound engineer, basically a fancy title for music composer in the digital age. Once my degree is finished, I hope to get a job in the video game industry.

I called him and asked “Zach what can I do to get my place back on the team?” “ Well,” he replied “I can call Bastin and ask him to help you with it he’s new too you know.”