Whoo! Day 9!

9 Days in a row of my inane day to day posts. Lucky you! You know I totally would have missed at least one already if there weren’t the possibility of prizes involved. You do know that right? I have this teeny tiny little competitive streak in me, see. Always have. Think I’m kidding? Ha! Story Time!

There once was a gawky girl in 9th grade, who’d played basketball for the same small Christian school since 6th grade. They played every day in gym, every day after school, with games on Friday and Saturday through out a good portion of the year. They lived and breathed basketball. You didn’t really have a choice on whether you played or not – you just did. The entire jr. high/high school was on the team. It was expected of you.

Some of the girls, they did it because it was simply expected. Our girl, she loved it. African Bounce Ball, as one of her teachers called it, was the highlight of her day, the only reason she got passing grades, the sole reason to suffer through school and get on the court. She didn’t care that she couldn’t jump to save her life, that she missed more baskets than she made, that she wasn’t the best on the team, not even that that she had to wear coulottes (COULOTTES PEOPLE – as the REQUIRED UNIFORM! with a light blue POLO SHIRT with dark blue numbers!) or that she had to wear a strap on her glasses to hold them on her face which made her look like a dork BUT kept her glasses on instead of breaking ANOTHER pair and angering the ‘rents. Nope – all she cared was that she could play.

And Play she did. She was tall – 5’6″ – well, taller then most of the other girls, and as such was a defensive forward. And she wasn’t afraid to get right on in there when the getting was good. No, our girl LOVED to get into peoples faces, to startle them, to make them think twice about trying to get around her. NOTHING was better then getting a stuff on a shot – all ball, in yo FACE, chica.

Well. During a tournament – of which they had several a year, our girl and her team were fighting tooth and nail for a win. It was an awesome game and both teams were evenly matched. The score was never farther apart then 3 baskets and the lead exchanged sides over and over again. It was the final quarter, and our girl’s team was behind by a basket or two. That’s when it happened. Some girl (and she really wanted to say some BITCH, but she was still young, and still a good girl) threw the ball and hit her smack dab in the nose. Her glasses fell off in two pieces, her nose EXPLODED in blood, and the game was stopped so she could be pulled out of the game.

PULLED OUT! OF THE! GAME!

Into the locker room, where her nose was seen too, and she blubbered a bit because hello – it hurt – until her mom (some call her Nana, now) came in and told her to suck it up, much to the surprise of the hovering coaches wife. But that mom (Nana) knew her kid well, and it sparked something in our girls eyes, and she got PISSED instead of staying hurt. Oh yes – fire came from pretty blue eyes, and our girl hopped off the counter and wiped off the rest of the blood and stalked right back out to the bench, to find (by asking, since she couldn’t see the score board any longer) they were three baskets, 6 points, behind, with only a minute or two left in the game.

She demanded to be put back in. Coach L wasn’t going too, until he saw that look in her eyes. She was GOING to go back IN. He nodded, gave her a play, and sent her out. Her first task, as she only had 1 or 2 fouls on her, was to get back at that b…girl who’d hit her. Conveniently, our girl went for a jump ball against that b…girl, and elbowed her RIGHT IN THE RIBS. How satisfying it was to see her blurry form limp to the side of the court, and sit down to remember how to breathe.

Then it was catch up time. Even though the hoop was a blurred thing in the distance, even through it was hard to see without her glasses, our girl made the next three shots. Those three shots pulled them into a tie, that sent the team into overtime. At the end, our girl’s team won the game by – you guessed it – six points.

After that, at the meeting they had before every game, to get psyched up for the effort ahead, Coach L threatened to let the whole team line up and smack her in the nose to get her ‘in the zone’. They never did – but it was certainly a long running joke, even when the following year, our girl changed teams and was actually allowed to wear SHORTS as part of the uniform.

But that’s a different story. And perhaps, some day, I’ll tell you about her CHEERLEADING uniform too. That she still has, tucked away in a hope chest, somewhere….

And how she was the only one on the cheer squad that could do the splits. And thus did them at the end of EVERY SINGLE CHEER. And how awful it was to play basketball for four quarters, then go put on that uniform.

And how hot it was, and not in a good way.

But again – that’s all a story for another day…. our girl, she has other things to do. And thus ends storytime on day nine…