The adrenaline pumped through my veins. My heart was beating so loud and fast. There was the ball, held in the referee’s hands, about to be thrown up into the air. I stood a few feet behind the boy on the opposite team, poised and ready to catch the ball when my teammate smacked it toward me. Oh, I was so nervous. Suddenly the basketball hit my stomach with incredible force. It bounced off and rolled away on the floor to be picked up by the opposite team. The game had begun, and I had already dropped the ball. I hadn’t even seen it flying toward me when I was looking straight at it.
I stood there, shocked, as the other team scored the first points of the game, not even seeing what was going on. How could I have missed the ball? “Come on, Alex! What are you doing? Get out here and play! ” One of my teammates smacked into my shoulder as he shouted at me, bringing me back down to the ground. I glanced around, embarrassed, at the scoreboard. Two to zero — we were losing at our last home game. As I scanned the gym to find the ball, I saw two of the boys, John and Brandon from the other team snickering in the corner as they watched my bewildered face.
They always took pleasure in making everyone within sight as frustrated and jealous as possible. I could tell I was in for a long game. Our coach called a time-out. He took me out of the game for a “little while” so we could “save my energy for when we really need it. ” I saw right through his poor attempt at enthusiasm and encouragement. The whole team was furious at me for losing the ball. I was angry at myself because I was playing poorly and had earned the name of the team loser. After the time-out, several boys on the other team that had been laughing at me marched haughtily onto the court.
From my perspective, they are so full of themselves. John mouthed to me, “This is how it’s done. ” Brandon flashed a bitter smile. I tried not to just hand victory over to them, but it was very difficult not to be furious. Eventually, I found myself scowling at the floor. John dribbled down to their basket and tossed the ball to Brandon, who scored another two points with a lay-up. Both of them turned to me to reveal a huge smirk. I scowled back. Soon my brow hurt from being furrowed for so long. Our team finally had the ball again.
It was passed down court to one of the worst shooters on the team, second only to me, who attempted a layup that turned into an air ball and landed out of bounds. Brandon greedily snatched the ball before anyone else could get it and dribbled down the court. After passing the half court line, he jumped up and smoothly swished a 3-pointer. Of course, he shifted so I could clearly see the smug look on his arrogant face. Our team was in possession. One of the boys launched the ball down court with tremendous force. Even I could see it would have been an easy catch.
The poor boy it was chucked to, though, got the struck right in the face with the ball. He ran out of the gym pinching his nose and crying. Now I had to go in. I wasn’t really expecting that. The fact that the coach had me in the starting five was terribly dumbfounding, but it was probably just so he wouldn’t have to keep me in the game very long. I saw John and Brandon whispering and laughing on the other side of the court, probably saying something like, “I can’t wait to see this. ” My throat burned and the gym grew blurry as tears welled up in my eyes from my fury.
I quickly sucked it up, hoping nobody had noticed, only to find the game had continued without me. I ran to catch up and participate, or to pretend to participate. It was a disaster. I tried to steal the ball as the boy ran down the court and was knocked down. I furiously struggled to get the ball from my own teammate. Out of the four times I shot for a basket, four of them were complete air balls going every direction. I even tripped when my foot hit the ankle on my other leg and tumbled to the floor. Another boy on my team about to catch the ball stumbled backwards over me and fell over.
The basketball slammed into the back of my head and gave me a hideous bump. By the end of the game, all the boys walked off the court rubbing elbows, knees, and heads. I had successfully managed to knock over every boy on both teams. Even though Brandon and John hadn’t been left untouched, they savored my embarrassments and failures, so they were the only two that left the court grinning slightly as they nursed their injuries. Our, whole team agreed the game was a catastrophe on everyone’s part. We all did awful at some point, or in my case, all points.
So the whole team didn’t despise me like I thought they would. Yet those two boys from what they thought was a higher level than everyone else, snatched the first opportunity to gloat over their victory to me. “Great job! Congratulations on a successful game! ” Brandon screeched with over-exaggerated enthusiasm and a huge cheesy smile on his face. Both of the boys burst into laughter. “Thank you,” I replied. “Could you have bumped into anyone more than that? ” John gasped after their laughing fit? “Really, John, I don’t think that’s humanly possible. ”
Brandon snickered. I did that quite enough, I think,” I said, smiling. John looked irritated that I hadn’t fumed and stomped out of the gym yet. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but you were awful out there. It was almost painful to watch. ” “Seriously, I almost threw up! ” said Brandon. “I’m sorry. You didn’t have to watch. Everyone has room for improvement, some more than others. If I work hard I could get really good at basketball,” I said. “Yeah right. ” “Well thank you for the great chat and all your compliments. They are greatly appreciated. But I have to go now; see my family is getting impatient over there.
You were right, I should start working harder. See you at our next game! ” I said as I ran to meet my family. I looked over my shoulder, and poor little Brandon didn’t look very pleased at all. I could almost see the smoke coming out of his ears. John was fuming beside him. Apparently I hadn’t been as devastated as they had hoped, and their insults hadn’t had any visible effect on me. I grinned. It was pathetic that they were so irritated that I didn’t take their taunting seriously.
Those boys were so cocky and overconfident. “Great g.. ” Dad doesn’t even say I had a good game. I didn’t, but that’s okay. I’ll work on it. ” As you can see, I wasn’t a very good team player because I acted like I was participating, but not really participating. From my perspective, I could of played and participated a lot better and more, but I made a “mistake” because I practically quit. Now on, I would try and participate more, play harder (and better), and try not to be angry and dissapointed at myself during the middle of any type of game. As you can conclude, I shouldn’t of acted and just played like nothing affected me.
