Our Family Story by Martha H

I remember it very clearly, February 2^nd. The day it was over. It was everything we worked for, everything we deserved, everything we thought about for sixty days straight. It never left our mind, not for a second. And the thought of that final victory teased and taunted us everyday. Every wall, every pushup, every lay up and sprint made our dream a small step closer to achieving. And in thirty-two minutes it ended. Thirty-two minutes of the hundreds of hours we worked. Barely a half hour time span and in a dramatic way, our lives had ended.

November 10^th, we began to experience hell. Excited and nervous, we were blindsided about what we were about to endure. Four hours seemed like a short enough time for us. Little did we know that with in those hours, we would push our bodies to a limit we didn’t know existed. The first two hours was straight conditioning, this was to be expected. I laugh now when I think of how naïve we players were. The few sprints we were expecting never occurred. And the reality of the fifty walls of consecutive sprints didn’t hit me until I was dry heaving on the side lines with every other guy in the gym.

From day one coach called us a family. And a family does everything together and finishes everything they start. Nine guys hadn’t completed the sprinting drill. So being the family that we were, we did the drill until every single person finished it. I ran over two hundred walls that day, and my assumable “excellent physical shape” didn’t give me an advantage. The last two hours were skill drills. Whether we were sprinting full court lay-ups or sprinting ball handling drills, our legs never stopped moving. After finishing up with a two mile run, day one of our five day try outs had ended.

It was hard to believe that our first day would be the easiest of the five but as we soon discovered, it seemed like a breeze compared to the others. Not only was each try out harder in skill and speed, but the more our mind told our muscles to give up, the harder it was to ignore. But soon enough our hell week was over, and practice began. Things were predicted to ease up since try outs were over but we learned very early to expect the unexpected. Practice had slowly become our daily rituals and occurred everyday until the games began.

Coach had promised that we would be ready for our first game and he hadn’t been kidding. We read, visualized, and wrote our plays down ten times a day and with the penalty of running five suicides for every mistake, no one forgot what to do after the second day of reviewing. Our first game was a rigorous game but in the end we had won.

The congratulation came short and was completely forgotten the next day at practice, but the mistakes we had made throughout the game were not. We worked and perfected and soon enough, it was time for our next game.

The games continued as the season crept on and before we knew it, playoffs began. It was unheard of that our town team wouldn’t make playoffs and with a recent state champ’s record, we had a lot to live up to. Other teams should’ve been intimidated but since we lost eight seniors last year; they expected us to be rookies. We were reminded that everyday and we fed on it to reenergize us. Playoffs had begun and we were ready. Slowly but steadily we continued to win our games. Eventually we found ourselves in the division finals.

The game was against the team we had beat in our first game. They underestimated us and losing was infuriating for them. They were hyped up and ready to play, but so were we. The game was unbelievably even, we scored and they followed in suit. But with three minutes left, the two point game we had since the start had ended and we pulled away with the win. I’ve never felt so accomplished before that moment, but we knew that it wasn’t over yet.

State Championships, here we come. The two hour drive didn’t stop the town from coming to support us. We stepped on the court and the crowd went crazy. The crowd, the feelings, the excitement began to fad once tip off began. We were caught off guard like coach had expected. The excitements of our past wins were over and the only thing that mattered now was this one game. By halftime opposing team held the lead by eighteen. Fretting the yelling and infuriation of the coach, we ran into the locker room.

But he didn’t yell or scream. He didn’t throw his clip board or get in our faces. He asked us what had happened in that first half. Where are the heart had gone, and motivation and courage and strength and why had it left? We knew we hadn’t worked this hard to come in this gym and get dominated and we were ready to change that. Second half was different, we came out strong.

The fight was difficult but with thirty seconds left, we were down by two.

Sprinting down the court to try and get one last shot, we had the confidence we could do it. We weren’t fast enough. Time ran out, we had lost. But none of that mattered. What mattered was how we got there and what it took, what mattered was how our family pulled together and didn’t give up. We lost but in our own way, we won a lot more. We would be back next year and knew exactly what we’d needed to do. February 2^nd was over, but in a way it was just the start.