It is now April, a month after basketball Season ended, I miss it a lot, I feel so lost
Without it. It feels like only yesterday that I Was getting ready for tryouts. I remember How nervous I was, I had butterflies in my stomach, but tryouts were not even close to what I thought they would be like. I already knew it would be hard. I knew I would have to push myself and I was right. Tryouts were very hard, we ran a lot and I was certainly expecting it, but the part that I was not expecting was where all the freshmen had to stand on the side during the drills. I understood that we would have to stand on the side for the first tryout so we could learn the drills but it remained that way for pretty much the whole year. The freshmen barely got to get in the drills with the other grades, the only time we did, coach would only put in a few at a time

Having to stand on the sideline watching all the seniors made me realize that I one day want to be in their position. I saw how they all worked their butts off every practice and every game.They worked hard and ran full speed during every drill. Coach Pinone would always yell at them and i knew it was only because he wanted to get the best out of them. There was one instance where 2 seniors got into a fist fight in the middle of practice and coach made the whole team run for it. He wanted to discipline the team and he taught us that we do everything together as a team and we stick together win or lose. This motivated me to work hard to get better and also to not settle for anything it also motivated me to work hard on my game once the offseason came. Seeing the seniors hitting big shots during games and working well together have me goose bumps when I watched it, the games would get so intense and it was truly great to watch. They had such a successful season and I want to do the same one day.

Experiencing all of the things from being picked on because I was a freshman and having to run so much til my body ached to having to sing in front of the whole team changed me and also Inspired me especially because basketball is a big part of my life and maybe one day i will he able to make a living off I what I love to do and that's playing basketball. But that's a whole different thing to sorry about. I have to take it one step at a time, my main focus right now is to work as hard as I can until I absolutely reach my limit. I always liked to play basketball for fun and to have a good time but after the season my feelings towards the game changed tremendously. I now take the game more serious and I have realized that there is a good chance that I could be playing basketball for a very long time to come.


One reason why I love basketball so much is because when I play I feel completely stress free, it's almost like my stress is going away once I step onto the court, another reason why I like playing basketball is the adrenaline and intensity that occurs during a game. It always feels great to hit the game tying or even game winning shot! There is absolutely no feeling like it and it's the best feeling in the world, it is unexplainable. Those are just some things that I love about basketball and I speak for many people when I say that it's a great feeling.

The most memorable moment of the season was when our boys varsity team suffered a devastating loss against rival, valley regional. The boys had their chances to win that game but a few missed free throws and a couple unforced turnovers at the end of the game. This ultimately costed Cromwell the game and after the final buzzer went off, valley 61 Cromwell 57. At this point I was in utter disbelief because we had such a great group of guys that deserved to win. The loss was the only thing I could think about for the next few days I was only a Jv player but seeing the seniors go out that way after working so hard to get to that point didn't feel right nor did it feel very good. Seeing this happen gave me even MORE motivation to come back next year at my strongest ready to give it 110% every single game.

In a way I felt like that was meant to happen because now it creates even more motivation to be great in the upcoming years. This season changed my life as I have already established, basketball is starting to take over my life and I am perfectly fine with that. There is a driving force in me that wants to succeed at the high school level and maybe beyond that i will make a strong effort to attain my goal.