Bench Warmers Basketball and Rap Battles

Basketball has been super fun lately. I started out having trouble making a left handed layup but I have gotten a lot more consistent. We started out with the Turkey tournament over thanksgiving break. I wasn’t there for the first game but apparently we won by 9 against Villa Grove, a solid start. Two days later we played a bad Decatur Christian. We were expected to destroy them but we ended up going 0-5 down. After we woke up we started to come back and we beat them by 20 or so. This always sucks for me because I warm the benches for others and only go in on games where we are up by a lot. Even though most games I sit out the whole game, I really get a special type of thrill handing out water bottles to the sweaty athletes who put their life on the line for their team. While the game goes on, however, it’s fun because we start chants and talk crap about the other team, yelling out funny remarks. We also have a freshman on the varsity team who we designate to take stats, many times he is the butt of jokes and some people, not naming any names, take it too far sometimes. But the bench is a fun place to be, we always make jokes about how we might go in or it might be our chance to make our impression on coach!

                The next couple games we lost to Clinton, a 3A school, 54-60, it was a good game and we had a comeback going on, and later that day we beat Blue Ridge. That concluded our tournament and we are now going into the regular season, 1-1, with a loss to Arcola and a win against Villa Grove again. The Arcola loss was bad and a game where we weren’t playing well at all, but I believe we bounced back against Villa Grove. Speaking of Villa Grove, I scored my first basket their!! I went in with 4 minutes to go and I made a layup but I think I made a good cut to get into the position to shoot. I dedicate those two points towards the bench squad for believing in me. Hopefully one day I can be like Paul and Noah who brag about how many girls follow them on Instagram after every game. It’s really just not fair because no one followed me after soccer games.

                Although it can be disheartening to not play at all some games, on away games specifically, the bus rides back make it all worth. The upper classmen go to the back of the bus, pull up a beat, and start rap battles, which if I may say so myself, can get pretty heated sometimes. Yesterday, Tony was attempting to rap and the bus driver interrupted and roasted the LIFE out of him. It was bad and I don’t think Tony will have the courage to rap any time soon.

                Hopefully there will be many more highlights to the season and a regional plaque to remember it all.

The Fall and Revival of My Basketball Career

I feel like I talk about sports way too much, but at least this blog isn’t about soccer.

                I started playing basketball when I was in 5^th grade. The local YMCA league was where my brother and I joined our first team. I remember on the first day of practice when we were the first 2 there and Omeed took his first shot and it went over the backboard. We had 2 coaches, and I think they were more impressed by Omeed having enough power to get the ball that high, than his accuracy. Prior to this practice, we sucked at basketball, a large part due to the fact that we focused mainly on soccer. Outside of playing at our cousin’s house occasionally, we had no experience with the game. We turned out to be one of the worst players there, but what made it worse was that there was 2 ball hogs on the team that thought they were the stuff, when they actually weren’t that good. I remember one of the kids’ names was Dustin and there was a period in the season where he couldn’t go to practice because he was suspended from school and we had practice at his school. Anyways, we ended up having a bad season, and I really didn’t gain anything from it.

The next time I remember playing basketball was during recess in Edison Middle School. Every day there would be one or maybe two basketballs with 40 kids who wanted to play basketball. Every day would be a 10v10 on one court and it was WILD. Every time someone would get the l there would be nails flying and everyone scramming for the ball. There were always some people got the ball every time and only shot, but that was something that just came with middle school. It was fun though.

                That next summer I joined the YMCA basketball league again but this time I was placed up an age division. I was definitely very intimidated and again, my brother and I were one of the worst players. A lot of my teammates ended up playing varsity at central or centennial when they went to high school later on so we were really outclassed. Being bad at basketball really wasn’t fun for me because no one ever passed to me and I can see why they wouldn’t want to. I scored maybe 8 points the whole season, but I had a really clutch moment towards the end of the season. We were tied with 20 seconds left against one of the best teams in the league, the ball fell to me and I chucked it from way out. It really wasn’t a smart shot considering how much time we had left. Yet even with my horrific form, it bounced against the glass and went in. I remember right after that shot, when we were transitioning to defense, my teammates looked at me in disbelief, as if to say “where did that come from”. That was my proudest basketball moment and I received a lot of compliments from parents who probably thought I was actually good.

                Since then I have taken a 7 year break from basketball, which is a very very long time. I decided that since it’s my senior year in high school, I wanted to have the high school basketball experience so I tried out for the Uni team. I made varsity (because I’m a senior) and I think it’s going to be fun. I can now focus on getting better at basketball since I’m tired of being bad.