Tweet! as our coach blows the whistle when the ball goes out of bounds. It is a scrimmage at basketball practice as I score a lay up. I see that there are two seconds left on the scoreboard so that meant that practice would end soon. Buzzzz! as the time runs out. “Good job practice is over you guys can go to your parents,” my coach says to the team. I run down the stairs out the door and into the car.
“Hi how did you play?” my Mom asks me.
“Great,” I say.
“Great,” she says back to me. Slam! As I close the car door with joy, it was so loud that it sounded like a bomb exploded. When we get home I go straight to bed.
It is Friday and it is the next day of basketball practice I get nervous that I won’t play well. The coach starts to talk to the team and he says we have games tomorrow at 9:00 AM… I almost puke as I get so nervous because I have never played in a game before and I was so bad at basketball. I stand there shaking from nervousness it is like I am freezing in Antarctica. “Are you ok,” the coach asks me.
“Y-yes,” I say in a nervous voice.
“Ok let’s get started,” the coach says. During practice I play terrible because I can’t stop thinking about my game the next day.
It is the end of practice and I run as fast as can to my car. I hop in my car and scream, “I have a game tomorrow!”
“It is going to be ok,” my Mom says to me. We head home. When we get home I hop in the shower and go to bed
I wake up and look at the clock it is 8:00 AM I have an hour I think to myself. I change into my jersey shaking. I’m going to be ok, I think to myself. I walk downstairs slowly to waste time. When I get to the bottom of the stairs I hear my parents talking about when we were going to leave but I couldn’t hear what time we were leaving. “H-hi,” I say in a nervous voice.
“Hi you are going to do great in your game there is nothing to be worried about,” my Mom says.
“I’m so excited for you,” my Dad says.
“I’m really nervous,” I say to my parents.
“It is going to be ok, I promise,” my parents both say.
“What time are we leaving?” I ask.
“At 8:30 AM,” my Dad says.
I go to my living room and start to watch TV. We have ten minutes until we leave and I can’t stop thinking about the game. It is ten minutes later and my whole family gets into the car to come watch me play.
When we get there I sit in the car feeling nervous. Then I get out of the car and go into the gym. Our team warms up by doing layups. I almost miss all my layups from how nervous I was. The ref tells all the players to go to the bench with their coach. Tweet! the whistle blows as the game starts with me sitting on the bench. At the end of the half we are up by ten points and I still haven’t played. I get mad but I deserve not to play.
It is the start of the second half and I step on the court to play. I get nervous so I breath in and out. Then it starts it is my teams ball and they pass it to the point guard. I run down the court and my team scores. Finally I got the ball and shoot brick as my shot hits the backboard. I get mad at myself for shooting such a bad shot. There are five minutes left in the game as I get subbed out of the game. We are winning by twenty points so we will probably win. There are ten seconds left as my team holds the ball to let the time run out. Buzzzz! As the time runs out. My team and the other team shake hands and say good game to each other. “Good job guys” my coach says to the team.
I run to my parents and say, “I played terrible”
My Mom says, “You are just learning and you played fine, you will get better, trust me.”
“Yes I am,” I say to myself.