https://padlet.com/2017joconnor/l6dql9iw4166 Cheering and flashing all over the stands, louder than anything I’ve ever heard. Sometimes I’d think to myself, we’re this young there’s no way they care this much about this game. Especially with the four foot small kid I was on the team. However, for that game, it would matter that they were cheering for me. We were the Lakers, playing against the Pistons in the first game of the playoffs. That year we had the worst team, one guy that could shoot and that was most certainly not me. On every team there was three typical kids, one was the really good player, the second player was the really awful player that is only doing this to get in shape for his real sport, and the third is the player that also can’t play but tries so hard he gets injured every game. I, unfortunately, was the second player. I was small, I couldn’t shoot, I could barely dribble, and defense wasn’t the forte of a four-foot-two child. Even the worst kids have amazing games, similarly even the best players have atrocious games. Now this specific game, the first playoff game against our arch nemisis, was a strange flip flopped game to play in. In the second half of the game with only three minutes left in the game the score started to become really close. They were coming back, it started by us up by 20, then 12, and then they tied it up. We had such a slim amount of time to get it back and they had all the momentum. When Coach pointed his scraggly finger at me and said “You’re in.” I was both surprised and disappointed, I saw what the good players were doing I couldn’t do what they were doing, I knew whatever I did it would only hurt the team. I got the ball only twice, and the first time was an absolute joke. As soon as I got the ball I tried to dribble and it hit off my foot and rolled to the other team. The time was ticking faster than the shelf life of orange juice. We only had a mintute and we had been scoring almost symetrically, two points after two points. Until in the last thirty seconds they took the lead, only two points, but they also had the ball. Without us having the ball we couldn’t score, I saw the man I was defending run by me, and I knew he would score. For the first time, I took a leap of faith, I ran up to the guy with the ball, swatted it away, and ran to the hoop. However, I couldn’t make it, he was catching up, so I ran up to the three point line. With just seconds on the clock, I stopped faster than I’ve ever stopped in my life. Good thing the defended couldn’t stop that fast, I lined up the shot and my feet so I wasn’t over the line. I shot it up and I just felt terrible, because all I saw was it went straight up, and straight down through the middle of the net. As I walked off the court thinking we had lost, I was reassured when people were cheering. I didn’t realize, until my teammate jumped over me, and screamed. I thought he was mad at me, until I saw my coach, he was proud, the first time anyone has ever been proud of me. I took the leap of faith and never regretted it. en-us 2016-06-03 15:42:49 UTC 2016-06-25 16:31:07 UTC hello@padlet.com 2017joconnor https://padlet.com/2017joconnor/l6dql9iw4166/wish/113620146 2016-06-03 15:49:03 UTC https://padlet.com/2017joconnor/l6dql9iw4166/wish/113620146 2017joconnor https://padlet.com/2017joconnor/l6dql9iw4166/wish/113620392 2016-06-03 15:50:34 UTC https://padlet.com/2017joconnor/l6dql9iw4166/wish/113620392 2017joconnor https://padlet.com/2017joconnor/l6dql9iw4166/wish/113620999 2016-06-03 15:55:10 UTC https://padlet.com/2017joconnor/l6dql9iw4166/wish/113620999