The Ex Basketball Player by John Updike

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The Ex Basketball Player by John Updike

A Loss of Motivation

In English Seven we read a poem called the "Ex Basketball Player" by

John Updike. The main character's name was Flick Webb. The poem

explains how Flick lost motivation. In high school Flick was an

excellent basketball player, if not, the best. After high school Flick

didn't continue his basketball skills, and he never had tried as hard

on his academics as he did on basketball. Flick now works at Berth's

Garage and has a dead end life. I think that Flick gave up because he

didn't want to work at something that didn't come easily, such as

academics. I enjoyed this poem because it makes you think, I will now

tell of a time when I lost motivation.

In fourth grade I took gymnastics. I really like it, and had a lot of

fun. The problem was that after a while my teacher didn't seem to

teach us many new tricks. On top of that, they were ready to move to a

new building. This building had a low ceiling, so I couldn't do the

uneven bars. The uneven bars happened to be my favorite event, so I

decided to quit.
...

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