Personal Narrative: My Love Of Basketball

Do you have a sport that you love? For me, basketball was always a passion. I play it all the time. Also, I watch the NBA and NCAA games whenever I can. Basketball is a big part of my life. My friends and I, along with many others, played in the house league at the JCC. The house league was not very serious and I was always one of the better players. After a couple years, my parents told me about the travel team, it sounded like a lot of fun, but very different. They said, there would be more practices, better competition, and obviously I would have to travel for some games. I decided to try out for the team. There weren’t that many kids trying out so there were only a couple cuts. All of my friends who tried out made the team as well. We

Whether I believed that I deserved to make the team last year wasn’t relevant anymore. I knew I had to prove that I should’ve made it. In the fall, I played soccer, boxed, and went to open gym as much as I could. All of these things helped me prepare for the tryout in a different way. Soccer helped with endurance, boxing helped with strength, and open gym helped me improve my basketball skills. Eventually, it was the day of the tryout and I knew I was prepared. I tried my best and made sure I gave my best effort at both tryouts. My hard work paid off and I made the team. I didn’t think I would have a big role since most players were already on the team last year, but once we started practices I realized I would have a pretty big role. The only other competition to start at center was Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a new student, so also didn’t know any of the plays. During practices, I figured out the plays very easily, but he struggled with them. He was clearly more talented than me, so I knew once he figured them out, he would play more than me. For the first couple weeks of the season, he still didn’t know the plays. Since he didn’t know them, I got the majority of the minutes at center and the important minutes at the end of the game. About half way through the season he started figuring things out and he became the starting center. I wasn’t mad about this because I knew it was bound to happen. After I got

I still love the sport, but I wasn’t sure if I was good enough to play. My parents have encouraged me to try out for the freshman team and keep playing. I decided that I would, but I knew I was going to have to get better. I wanted to play soccer, but my parents said that I should play basketball instead if I’m going to tryout. I didn’t know what team I was going to play for during the fall. The 2 teams I used to play for have both fallen apart. My final 2 options were the Illinois Run and All In. The Illinois Run was a new program, but it was coached by my coach at Joy of the Game. All in is a very big program for kids in the Chicago area. I decided to try out for The Run because I already knew the coaches and most of the players. I thought there were going to be a lot of kids at the tryout, but there were only 10 kids so everyone made it. The goal for everyone on the team is to make their high school teams in the winter. Our coach has helped all of us prepare for that. Also, I have been doing the fall conditioning at the high school. It is a lot of running and the purpose is so people are in shape for the season. I think because of the Illinois Run and fall conditioning, I’m ready to try out this