My Basketball Journey

By Ishaan Murthy

I was sitting by the playground when my friend came up to me frantically bouncing a basketball. I had never tried the sport before, but he seemed invested. He raved about how fun it was, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I was 5 years old when this happened, and my friend was a year older than me, so I thought that anything he said was right. Because of this, I decided to try out the sport. At first, I was very excited but also confused because I didn’t know anything whatsoever about the game.

“Ishaan, are you even listening to me?” my friend called.

“Sorry, I - um am just a little tired,” I replied.I had completely zoned out, but a new wave of emotions had just hit me. A sense of excitement, nervousness, and readiness

A few weeks later, I tried playing basketball for the first time at the park. I started practicing dribbling and shooting on the small eight-foot hoops. I was hooked. But I knew that I had to practice in order to get any better. So I started to practice, practice, and practice some more. Eventually, I had gotten pretty good for my age, and I even got my own hoop which I set up in my backyard to practice! 

Soon, I started practicing for hours at a time, and I wanted to join a team. I begged my parents to let me but they didn’t know what type of team would be a right fit for me. They soon gave in and enrolled me in a league for small children. It was called Hi-Five.  Little did I know that this was going to be much harder than I thought. 

I sat in the car, and my parents drove me to my first practice. When I reached the rec center, I saw a big indoor gym with many hoops. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. This made the sport appear more grand to me. I walked over to a desk where I had to sign in. I was so excited to meet my new team. The person at the front desk signed me in and I met my new coach. 

“Hey what's your name?” the coach asked.

“Ishaan,” I responded.

“On a scale from one to ten, how much do you enjoy basketball?” 

“One thousand!” I screamed. 

The coach took me to meet the rest of my team. They were shooting around and having a good time. I joined in and started shooting around with them. I saw one of my teammates make shot after shot after shot. When I tried doing that, I failed miserably. I couldn’t even make two shots in a row! Soon, the coach started to bring in more kids who were going to be with me for the season. After every kid had shown up, we did introductions, and then only, we started the actual practice. Our coach made us do ball handling and shooting drills. It was then that I realized I had to practice way more than I used to. I was falling behind and I was struggling to dribble to the hoop and make easy close shots. I knew that I had to try much harder If I wanted to improve. Overall, my first practice was super fun, I got to make some new friends while improving at a game I loved. This was a new experience for me. I was nervous and excited about what was to come. On the drive home, I noticed that I was feeling tired and exhausted.

“We can get some Ice cream to celebrate your first practice!” my mom said.

“That would be fun,” I replied.

“Where do you want to get it?” she said.

“I’m fine with anything!”

After we got Ice cream, I was feeling much better and I was ready for my next practice which was in a week. I also knew that I had to work on my skills by myself in addition to the team practices. I was so excited for my first game in two weeks. This week I knew that I was going to practice with all the free time that I had. Everyday after school I would come home and work. I would take shots close to the hoop, increasing my range every day. This practice helped me become a better shooter on all spots of the court. I then practiced my ball handling and I tried to do 20 dribbles with each hand after every drill. I got so much better that I was even able to do a crossover by the end of the week. Before I knew it, it was time for my next practice.  

During my next practice, I knew that my hard work had paid off. I was now able to do what only a small portion of kids could do. I could shoot from multiple places around the court, and I could dribble while moving. I was very satisfied with myself. But the best thing that happened at practice was that I found myself making new friends. This was new to me because I had never had any friends who didn’t go to my school. But it was soon, at the end of practice when my coach had a little pep talk waiting for us. I was nervous but I was ready.

“Great job in practice today,” he said.

“Thank you, coach!” We all replied.

“But I need you to keep putting in the work because we need to be ready for our     first game against real competition.”
“Yes, coach!” 

I went home feeling good about myself, and feeling great that I had caught up to the skill level of the other kids who I wanted to be at the same level as. Feeling confident as ever, I thought that I could stop practicing and everything would be fine. I thought I could slack off and I would still be ready for the game. So as the week went by I wasn’t working as hard as I needed to be, and I was definitely not in game shape. I had to pick up the pace. Halfway through the week, I picked up a basketball, and I took some shots in the backyard. To my surprise, I missed almost every single one, even the ones which were super close to the hoop. I went to check If the hoop was lowered enough, and it was. I didn’t know what had happened, so I decided to wait another day and see if anything would change. Turns out something did change: I had gotten worse. I couldn’t make a single shot that day. Not one. I got mad at myself and I knew what I did was wrong, but I still procrastinated practicing until the game. 

It was game day and I was super excited. My parents drove me to the game and I was ready to play. Or so I thought. On the first play of the game, the player on offense blew right past me to get an easy layup. The rest of the game had a similar story as we ended up getting decimated. It was now that I realized not practicing was a big mistake. I knew I had to work as hard as I could so I could perform well in the game. 

There was one game where I even had a season-high of 16 points. They gave me a little certificate for that. I was very proud of myself. 

The season went by so fast that It was now time for the playoffs. In the first game, I played very well, not on the offensive end but on the defensive end. I locked down the player that I was guarding and he didn’t score a single point. Our team felt like we were the best team in the league. We were on top of the world.

 The second game, however, was a completely different story. In the first half, we were getting torched by their team's best player, and we were losing a lot of points. During the 3-minute halftime break, one of my teammates took a leadership role and gave us a pep talk on how we weren’t working as a team. I took him seriously, and I knew that we had to start communicating with each other on offense and on defense. This gave us a boost of energy going into the next period and we all were on fire. We were shooting lights out, and whenever the ball hit the net and made the “swishhh” sound, It felt like I was in basketball heaven. This quick burst gave us a lead which we held on to until the end of the game. We had done it. We had made it to the championship. As the late great Kobe Bryant says: “Job not done.” I knew we had to prepare. The championship game was the day after our previous game, and I was super nervous. More nervous than I had ever been before. But finally, here I was. Playing in the championship game of my basketball league for young kids. Although it didn’t seem like a big deal, it was one to me. I knew that I had to come out with a winning mentality, and I did. Luckily for me, the rest of the team did as well. This mentality helped us push through the first half with a solid lead and during the second half when we weren’t shooting as well as before, it helped us stay hard on defense. Eventually, we got the win, “YESSSS!!!” We all screamed at the end. 

This was a special moment for all of us. But for me personally, I knew that I wanted to take the next step, and I knew that I wanted to continue this for years to come. This has become a part of my identity because it is the one sport that I know and love. This why I knew would be the right sport for me. This is why I chose basketball.