Friends & Basketball

Growing up, we met many people that are somehow drawn to us that are either shares the same interests with us or just fun to be around and if you’re lucky they’re both. Friends are just the people we met and like to be around and talk to when our family members are just not the people to go to. My first friend I made when I was in Preschool, as little as we were neither one of us knew that we would evolve into what is known as “best friends”.

We grew up in the same area and began going to school at the same school with the same teacher. But then in 3^rd grade we received different teachers, though the classrooms separated us, nothing ever came between us during lunch and recess. The following year, she transferred to a new school a few miles away, so we wrote letters to each other for the entire year and occasionally I was allowed to visit her and play at her house. It was nice to have someone my own age that I could communicate with and proudly call my best friend. As we grew older, distance became our enemy, our 5^th grade year I transferred to Winslow (even further away from her than I already was!) starting out in a new school was difficult for me. Until then I finally understood how she felt when she first transferred through her letters. As the next few years when on our communication level declined drastically due to the large amounts of homework we I received and she had continue playing basketball, it was hard to keep contact as middle-schoolers. So instead of seeing each other in person, it was like we only seen each other on paper now.

Then came junior high, we once again were reunited at last! No more distance between us or writing letters, we finally had each other at our side. I couldn’t be happier having her back after so many years, and at school we had some of our classes together which made me even happier! Nothing ever got between us and nothing ever will, personally, I never could ask for a better friend than her. She was the person that could practically read my mind and finish my sentences for me and had so many fun memories from grade school that we would occasionally reminisce about the “good ole days”. As a bonus, from spending a few years apart, we developed friends of our own who all got along very well. We became an entire group of friends that had even bigger and greater laughs together, but it turned out that they all had played basketball, not I.

Though when the 7^th grade try-outs came around they all encouraged me to go, so I went. On the first day of try outs, on a piece of paper that was being handed around we were instructed to write: our name, how many years we played basketball and what position we played. My friend knew I have never played before, so she told me to copy what she wrote down three years of playing basketball as a post player.  At the end of our second week of try-outs, I made my first basketball team my 7^th grade year. I also became a part of the starting five basketball team that year and the next year as well. If it wasn’t for the amazing set of friends I had during my two years of junior high, basketball would have never been a sport I played because I constantly needed their assistance on running plays and working hard both offense and defense to improve my “game”.

With all the fun I was having on and off the court and making more friends that had the love for the game of basketball was a big part of my junior high years. As a team, we were like a family and set dreams of becoming state champions our senior year. Although towards the end of my 8^th grade year I decided to leave Winslow and finish my senior year at Holbrook. Why? Because I thought being a Roadrunner would make my dad and his family notice me. My entire childhood has always been stuck between the rivalry of Winslow and Holbrook, my mom and majority of her siblings graduated from Winslow and my dad and his siblings from Holbrook. So if you go to either school, you should kind of know what I mean, but if you don’t, watch any game, any sport at any location and you’ll know what I mean instantly. Leaving my best friend, again, and everyone else was hard because basketball really united our friendship.

As a freshman at Holbrook, I didn’t know anyone at all. Thankfully, I played volleyball much longer than I did basketball, so at a new school I tried out for a sport. There I made new friends, along with my girls from Winslow, after volleyball was over came the sport I was looking forward to, basketball. Playing basketball with new players was a new experience from me after spending my first two years with my first team at my previous school. But I adapted and learned that friends and basketball took away the lonely feeling from transferring and not knowing anyone. Between the two years I played for Winslow and the three for Holbrook, I feel blessed to have been alongside them on the court and both set of girls are extremely talented. Unfortunately, for my senior year I choose not to play, not because of my families, or the girls, or whatever but for my education and new dream of being a welder.

I still support all of my friends on the court and enjoy the game of basketball every now and then because it’s taught me so much in just five years. I learned that a team is a family and for your family: you work your hardest both in school and on the court, you practice until everything is right, not matter how sore or how tired you are, and what I think is most important about a family is you stay a team, not matter what the scoreboard reads in the end. Without a team, you have no family and it makes it harder on yourself and the team. I will never forget my team, whether they have “Holbrook” or “Winslow” written across their chest because in my heart, they will always be my family. For the true love of the game of basketball and irreplaceable friendships with all my teammates!