Here's the opening paragraph and then a tidbit of what's in it.
For as long as I’ve lived, I have loved basketball. For as long as I can remember, I have played basketball. For my whole life, basketball has been just that: my life.
My first recollection of basketball was when I was still in diapers. Someone bought me one of those Fisher Price basketball hoops for little kids. My parents set it up in the tiny living room of the small basement we called a home in Provo, Utah. I’d spend hours shooting that little plastic ball into the hoop, retrieve the ball, and repeat. I got so good, I could beat all the other three-year-olds on the block. I was the envy of all toddlers in the entire street.
I found out that prior to tryouts, there would be a meeting for all those that wished to tryout. It was to be held directly after school on a Tuesday. I did not find out about this meeting until the day of the meeting. I did not have a cell phone at the time, so I tried to get a hold of my mom through one of the school phones. She did not answer. Several times, I attempted to call her, with the same result. I left a message on her phone, explaining that she would have to pick me up from school later because of this basketball meeting.
When I arrived at the meeting, there were a lot of people there. Many of them were newcomers like me, hoping to show the skills that they weren’t able to show the previous year. Some were players that didn’t make the team the previous year, hoping to show how much they had improved. Others were players that had been on that seventh grade team hoping to maintain that spot they had.
I don’t remember too much about the meeting itself. They just told us stuff about what they expect of us, how many people they can keep, physical evaluations, blah blah blah.
After the meeting, I called my mom asking for a ride home.
“Where were you after school?”
“I had a basketball meeting.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the meeting?”
“Well, I called you several times to try to tell you, but you never answered the phone, so I left a message.”
“I didn’t get any message.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. We spent half an hour waiting in the hot car for you and you didn’t show up. We looked all around the school for you and couldn’t find you. So we left.”
“Well, can you pick me up now?”
“No, I’m not wasting my time and my gas. You’re walking home.” She hung up.
At first, I could not tell if my mom was being serious or not. When I finally realized she was being serious, I picked up my backpack and began to walk home. I think it’s important to note that my middle school was about eight miles from my house, uphill, and along a busy freeway. As you can imagine, I was not too happy about this, so I would mutter stuff under my breath that I would never repeat to my mother, or kick rocks, or yell at cars that honked at me as they whizzed by.
About six miles into my trek, my mom finally picked me up. I was not at all pleased to see her. I had just walked six miles in hot weather, with a heavy backpack, right next to cars speeding past me at sixty miles per hour. But I had done it for something I loved. I did it for basketball.
Let me know what you think.
No comments:
Post a Comment