The Forgotten Sport

The ball bounced up and down. Up and down. Up and down. It is music to my ears. But some people hate it. They loathe the sound that is everywhere. Well not everywhere. Not in my town. The small town of Langston Hills which is located in scenic South Carolina. Langston Hills just happens to be the most boring town in the entire country. There is nothing really going on there. People just do their insanely boring jobs and come home to their insanely boring lives. People really don’t care about much except one thing, sports. They start their kids really young. Like pre-school young. At the beginning the parents choose what sports the kids play. This is mainly because the kids can’t talk yet. If the parents have been living in the town for their whole lives, they start of their kids in either baseball or football. These are the two main sports in our town. People worship them. But people also play soccer, lacrosse, and hockey. These are pretty popular too. There are also a lot of swimmers in our town. But, if you have any self dignity then you don’t swim. All the geeks, computer nerds, and weirdo Goth people swim. So a lot of people try to stay away from swimming. That only leaves one major sport; basketball. Basketball is the one and only forgotten sport. Barely anyone plays it. The Y doesn’t even have a league, at any age. The only reason why there are gyms are built in our town are for volleyball and the occasional wrestling match. They just through in a few hoops in some empty wall space. No one uses them. Except one person. And that person is me. Ever since I’ve been little, I have been throwing the ball up, trying to get it into the hoop. I am really the only one who loves the sport. I am the exception in our town. Basketball is my life.
Since fifth grade, I have worshiped basketball. I started out playing baseball, which I wasn’t bad at, but by fifth grade I’d had enough with it. It was so slow and boring. There was like nothing going on. You hit the ball then run a short distance to the base. I couldn’t take it. My coach was a jerk, yelling at me constantly. Then, one game, when my team was in the field in the bottom of the last inning with two outs. I was pitching. That game, we only had nine guys. If we had one less we would have had to forfeit. Also, the stakes were high. If we won this game then we made it to the championship. Everyone on our team really wanted to win. But things were looking not that good. We had two outs which was a plus but they had their bases loaded. We were tied. But fortunately their worst batter was up. He had had one hit the entire season. I zoned in to the strike zone. I got into my windup and let the pitch go. It whizzed by the kid. “Strike one!” yelled the ump. My catcher stood up and fired the ball back to me with a huge grin. Then I took a huge breath and whipped the ball into the strike zone. A triumphant “Yes!” went off in my head. I felt so good right then I almost screamed. But the next five minutes were hell. I started pitching balls. I was okay after the first one. The second one got me a little nervous but the third one really shook me up. “Concentrate!” I yelled, almost out loud. I relaxed my shoulders but right befor I threw the pitch my coach came running out onto the field. He didn’t look that mad but then I realized he was just looking happy for the parents. He turned to me and stuck his butt ugly face right into mine. I could smell his wretched garlic breath and the faint smell of cigarettes. I knew what was coming. He was going to start calling me names and saying that I sucked and if I walked this guy I would be the worst player ever. But right before he could say any of that crap, I just walked away. Actually, I knda ran but it doesn’t really matter. Everyone on my team hated me for a while after and some still hold a grudge. But that pretty much ended my baseball career. Oh and as for coach, he died of lung cancer about five years after the game. But before he died he got kicked out of his house by his angry wife, got sued for pirating movies, and ended up living in a shack just off I-42.
Reliving my baseball memories aren’t exactly my favorite memories. I rarely tell anyone about them. And I don’t know why I should when I have so many basketball memories. Just kidding. I really only have one basketball memory. And it actually is a good one.
One time when my dad went to New York a few years back to visit a friend he took me with him. It was great in the big city. Pretzels and hot dogs being sold on every corner, getting to walk everywhere, and all the noise. I had never heard so much of it in my life time. We visited all the museums, all the landmarks, and we even went to a Yankee game which was cool but since it was the year after I had quit baseball I wasn’t that interested. Then on our last night in the city my dad’s friend burst into our hotel room yelling that he had just got floor tickets to the Knicks game. My dad barely looked up from the Sports Illustrated he was reading. “Not interested” he said with almost no enthusiasm. This proved that he was not a basketball guy. “What about J.J.?” my dad’s friend asked. “Would he like to come?” “Why don’t you ask him?” my dad said with no interest. I jumped up so fast that I tripped on a play station controller. I got a face full of carpet but I was fine. “Let’s go!!!!!!” I yelled. “Don’t stay out to late.” My dad said grumpily. I was so excited on the way to the game that I almost wet my pants. When we got there I really did wet my pants. Just kidding. We were taken to our seats by an usher who was all dressed up. We were right on the floor. I couldn’t believe it. Well I guess I should have been prepared for it, seeing as we have floor tickets. We were early, so we watched the players warm up. I saw them dribble between the legs and behind the back. I watched them shoot and spin. It looked so graceful. And I loved every minute of it. That was when I really fell in love with the sport. I didn’t realize it then, and I didn’t realize it in the few days after that, but that was the one moment that changed my life forever.
“Ring!” The school bell went off as 1500 kids poured into the hallways from classrooms, and computer labs, and some from the bathroom, having spent the whole period there due to the lunch lady’s recent attempt at making the school food edible. Unfortunately her attempt involved, actually, you don’t want to know. You could hear people slamming there lockers and yelling at there friends to hold the bus. I coasted threw the madness, being careful not to allow people to be shoved into me. I jammed my books into my locker and headed off for the gym.
I was feeling like crap today, but I was totally pumped to get out on the floor with my teammates. Wait, I know what you’re thinking, what team? What teammates? Didn’t he say that there was no basketball?
Well I did say all those things but I may have left some stuff out. Last year, we got a new history teacher. Mr. Robbins. He was great. Funny, cool, and never gave out detentions. But he had a passion for one thing that he could never get his mind off. Basketball. He was obsessed. He just walked into the classroom the first day talking about basketball and how it was the best sport and all this stuff and that was the day he became my favorite teacher ever. Well last year, when he found out that there was no basketball team for him to coach he went crazy. Mr. Robbins went to the principal, then the director of education and then the board of education. Finally he won out. They told him that if he could find enough players they could have a team. He was really happy, but it was nothing compared to me. I was ecstatic. I was the happiest I have ever been in my entire life. More happy then when I went to the Knicks game. More happy then when I went to Jamaica on vacation. More happy then…….well you get the picture. So since then we have had a basketball team. But we didn’t play any games that year. We could only find four players. Me, and my two friends that after many grueling hours I convinced to play, and Norman Sewell. Now Norman isn’t exactly good at basketball. The only reason he is on the team is because he sucks at swimming which is all his friends do and his mom makes him play a sport so he’s not playing videos games all day. I would rather have my kid sister go out for the team then him. But anyway, we didn’t have a full team so we couldn’t play. But one thing that we could do was practice. Last year we practiced with an eighth grader who is going to be a freshman this year so we are going to have a real team and we will be able to play in the high school league! My dreams were coming true!

To Be Continued...