Starting Basketball
Silas Brizard
I was a five year old kid, living in Chicago. The day my dad got a mini basketball hoop in our apartment, I started playing with it immediately. As soon as I shot my first shot on that mini hoop, I told my dad I wanted to watch people play basketball as well. So my dad turned on the TV, and we both watched professionals play the sport of basketball. After watching them play on the TV, I thought to myself that I wanted to be on the TV someday to play basketball as well. After playing on that mini hoop for around two months, my dad got a NBA regulation hoop which is ten feet tall. So I took a basketball and started practicing on the bigger hoop in our house's driveway. After playing on the ten feet hoop for around two years, we moved to a new state. We were moving to California.
Moving to California would mean a few things: one being making new friends, adjusting to a new environment; and two, leaving my basketball hoop behind and giving it away. Once we moved, we were living in a place called Foster City. Foster City was very different, although there was a park across the street that had a half size basketball court.
My parents were unloading some boxes and I looked at my dad and said, “Hey Dad! Can we go play on that court?”
“Sure, in a little bit,” he replied.
When I heard the word “Sure” I got ready to go out and play at the park. We played in the park for a little bit. When we were walking home, one of our new neighbors looked at us and noticed that I had a basketball in my hand. He said his grandson plays too. He talked to us for a little bit. He said I should try out for a team. So me and my dad did some research.He signed me up for tryouts for a team called Team Esface, around 20 min from our house at the time.
Once the day came for tryouts, I got my basketball clothes on and drove to tryouts. It was around a twenty-five to thirty minute drive because of traffic.
Once we got to tryouts, the coaches made us do some drills. Some drills we were working on were shooting, ball handling, defense, and athleticism. Everyone else in the tryouts did the drills and so did I. Every time we would do a new drill they would time us, or record what we got. For example, if I shot ten shots and made three, the coaches would record it as I made three out of ten shots. The last thing before we went home was to play a scrimmage.
They seperated us into different teams and we played a full court, 5v5 game. For the game, all the coaches were either recording the game or reffing. After the game ended we all circled back up in the middle of the court and they told us that the results would come out a few days after the tryouts because they had to look at everyone’s scores.
After tryouts ended I took a sip of water and headed to my dad and I told him all the information that the coaches told us. He understood and we walked to the car to head home. As we were driving home he asked me how the tryouts were.
I said “They were good, but I'm nervous for the results to come out.”
“That's normal, I would be nervous too,” my dad replied.
“Ok,” I mumbled.
A few days later, my dad got an email from the team. The email talked about my tryout and that I made it on to the 2nd grade basketball team! I was so happy! All my nerves went away, and I ran across the house to get a basketball to start practicing.
The time came around when it was my first practice with my new team that I had never even met. The only person that I knew there was the coach and I didn't even know him to well. We went to one side of the gym to do something that I had never heard before in my life. It was called a dynamic warm up. A dynamic warm up is when you warm up by doing stretches and everything else you would need to warm your body up to play or practice. After the dynamic warmup we split up and did some ball handling skills. After the ball handling drill we did a shooting drill. After the shooting drill, our first practice was over. I walked over to my dad, so excited to tell him how it went. I was so excited to have my first game after one more practice.
The next practice came around and there were two more days until our first game. The second practice was just as fun as the first. But we did some different things. Some similar things were shooting drills like the first practice, and others being different, like a drill called “UCLA.” The drill was like a game but also not. We split up into two teams and the coaches had us run a game. There would be two people on the other side of the court on defense and three people on offense. One person from one team would run to the middle of the court then join the other 2 on defense while there would be 3 people on offense trying to score. The second practice ended and I was so excited for the first game to happen. I was so excited I made my basketball bag the second I got home from my second practice. I spent the whole night thinking about my first game and I couldn't fall asleep.
The time came where I got to drive to my first game. I was feeling so excited, nerves going through my whole body starting from the head going all the way down to the feet. My stomach was feeling very nervous and rumbly. As we pulled into the parking lot for the game, I got even more nerves in my body. As soon as I saw my team and my coaches getting warmed up, I immediately joined them excitedly.
Before I knew it, tip-off had already happened, and I was running back and forth, up and down the basketball court. While I was in the game all my nerves were gone, and all I was thinking about is playing this game and helping my team to win. When the referee blew the whistle for halftime, our team ran to our coach and our coach was telling us all the plays and feedback we needed to help us win the game. There were two minutes left and we were winning by around seven. The other team ended up scoring one more layup, but our team still ended up winning by five.
As my dad and I were driving back home from the game, we were talking about how great it went for our team. Even though I did not score any points in that one game I still enjoyed it.
When I took that one shot when I was five, I would have never known it would have affected my life this much. It has turned into me practicing everyday for sometimes several hours. I think being a basketball player has changed who I am a lot. Sometimes I talk about it a lot and I think that has changed my personality and actions in a good way. Some changes that have affected my life are how I act, feel, and how my schedule everyday changes. Thanks for reading!
