Rachel P

The Game of Hope

            There’s something about being on a losing basketball team that gives me almost no hope that we’ll ever win a game. My travel basketball team has lost almost every single game that we have ever played. Being the type of person who always walks into a game saying, “Um, yeah, looks like we’re going to lose this one,” I never thought we were able to win. Until the tournament in West Virginia. That tournament gave me hope that we could actually win a couple games.

             I walked into the high school gym in a small town in West Virginia with my earphones in and my sweatpants on, trying to get myself into a mood to play the three games we had that day. The gym was older, hot and smelled like sweat. The gym floor had a big basketball painted on it right at center court. My teammate and friend, Abby, asked me, “Do you think we’ll win today?”

            I answer her with uncertainty, “Not sure, maybe. We never know.”

            Coach Price, an African American man with kindness and positivity in heart, gave us a pep talk before our first game of the day, “Now ladies, don’t get all worked up about this game. Stay loose and focused. Remember, I don’t care about wins or losses. I just care about your effort and that you play as hard as you can.”

            With that in mind, we jogged onto the court to begin our warm up drills. The buzzer went off after three minutes to end our shots and dribbles. We ran back over to Coach Price to see what offense and defense we were running and who was starting.

            “Alright, girls. This is it. Make me proud,” said Coach.

            The five starters, who were Abby, the two Laurens, Elizabeth, and I, jogged onto the court for the tip off. The ref blew his whistle and threw the ball straight up into the air. The tip went to us. We made a quick basket and got an easy layup before the other team could stop us.

            Wow, that never happens, I thought to myself.

            At the end of the first half, we were up by fifteen points. Coach Price told us to not act cocky and to go into the second half just as serious and aggressive as the first half. We can’t lose this. This game is for Coach because without him, we wouldn’t be where we are right now, I thought.

            We ran back out onto the court just as the buzzer went off to end halftime. Lauren Wilson brought the ball up the court as I cut hard into the middle of the lane. She saw me, passed the ball, I ball faked to trick the defender and made a layup. We were full of adrenaline and ready to win this ball game.

            With five minutes left in the second half, we were up by twenty and the other team was struggling to get a comeback and beat us. Our defense was tight though and any loose balls were picked up quickly by us and taken down the court to finish strong.

            The buzzer honked to end the game. We ran off screaming with delight and joy while the other team’s head’s hung low. Our parents embraced us with tight hugs and Elizabeth’s dad agreed to get everyone ice cream for the win that everyone was waiting for.

            This taught me a lesson. That going into a tough situation with a pessimistic attitude gets you nowhere. People need to go into every situation with their head high and if something goes wrong don’t get discouraged because things change. That game proved me wrong, we actually can win a game and it gave me bliss satisfaction to see everyone join together as a team to win a game that was important to us all.