Personal Narrative: My Year Of High School Basketball

Throughout the next eight months I improved in all types of areas. I got faster, stronger, and smarter. Football was right around the corner and I was ready to earn a varsity

Being the best player on a basketball team is a lot of pressure for an eighth grader. Like another elite player on a team, I was expected to be the highest scoring player at every game, and to get the rest of the team involved in the offence. One of my teammates, Andreus, was autistic. As you may assume he was not the best player on the team, but he certainly had the most heart. The rest of my teammates refused to pass to Andreus because when he had the ball, it was an almost certain turnover or a missed basket.

When football season finally arrived, I found myself on the varsity team. I thought it was going to be a repeat of my past two seasons of me just being another benched player. But I actually started for more than half the season as defensive linemen. Even on games where I didn’t start, I was getting a lot of playing time. That really pushed me to be even better for my senior season.

Now I knew almost all of the coaches except the freshmen. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew we were going to come out and work hard every practice. All I wanted to do was impress the coaches. I had an advantage over all my teammates, I kinda knew what they expected.

Raced down the basketball court. As soon as we reached the basketball goal. I did a really quick move called the hop step. With a reverse layup at the end. After that I looked at the coaches and they looked down at their papers and called me over.

I was not supposed to be on varsity, but since I was at every summer workout and studied the sport for the upcoming season I earned a spot. When we went to start practice I was starting on both defense and offense and I felt unstoppable. Two weeks went by and we had our first scrimmage against the hale center. I

When I was in eighth grade i was the star of my recreational soccer league, so going into highschool I was not only expecting great things, but I was expected by others to do great things. My coaches, my teammates, and my friends all knew me as a great player which put a lot of pressure on me walking into high school tryouts. I did not know anyone there but I quickly saw that the level of skill I was competing with was something that I had never experienced before. With that I went from being the best player in the league to not making the team my freshman year.

Lastly, this picture represents how hard we worked to get where were. It was so accomplishing making varsity as a freshman. Our first day of practice was rough because all of the upperclassman on JV were pissed at us. One time during a water break, they basically told us just to quit because we weren’t going to get any playing time.

All year around I practiced and I could see myself get better but I didn't know if I was good enough to compete in high school basketball. Finally, freshmen year tryouts came, and this year I was confident in my ability but I was also nervous because we had to tryout in front of coaches and upperclassmen I didn't know. Tryouts lasted three days at the end the coaches announced who made the team. The new coach called my name and I slowly walked up to him hoping I was going to make the team.

I knew that my goal was to be one of the starting five, but how was I going to get there. I could work out, eat healthier, try harder in practice, and suck up to my coach. I’m kidding I didn’t suck up to my coach instead I proved myself to him that I should be starting on the court instead of the bench. So, what I did was run, lift, eat healthier, and eventually he started to notice me. I was getting faster and stronger than my teammates and opponents.

I believe that every day is training day. As a high school athlete, sports are a way of relieving the stress of everything that is going on in my life. For me, that stress is relieved is when I step out on a soccer field with my team and we play to our best capability for 80 minutes. Any athlete knows that in order to become a great and dedicated athlete you have to put in the work and be passionate about what you do. When I was an eighth grader going to be freshman I thought I knew this already, as I did play soccer every year since I was five (I was fourteen at the time.)

I started playing high school basketball my sophomore year. My first two years, I had an amazing coaching staff making me better every day. My varsity coach, who for privacy reasons we will call Coach C., was everything I could ever ask for in a great coach. He

That experience taught me a valuable lesson about being realistic and figuring out what would be the best decision for my life. However it didn’t end there. As you know I never give up and even when I’m told to stop or I’m not good enough I still keep going. My coach texted me about a week later and told me he made a mistake and he would want me to be on jv. That season for jv I started out from being cut, then being the very last guy on the bench, to then working my way up to be a starter for some games and getting lots of playing time.

I started to practice at my house—it was the only hoop available for me at the time. Everyday, I would go outside and just shoot as many shots as I can so, I could make my form better. A few weeks of practicing, I started to see progress in my form—I made more shots than usual. Since I thought I was getting better, I decided to ask my parents if they could put me in a basketball team. My parents agreed without any hesitation.

To make things a bit more complicated my high school coach had been my coach my entire softball career. He knew how I thought, how i played, and really molded me into the player I am today. I soon graduated from my little league summer softball to the competitive nature of highschool ball. As a freshman I knew I was going to be overlooked. Too much of my surprise I was placed on varsity for my pitching abilities.