
April 8th, 2015
I arrived back at home after the long Monday to find my dad in the family room watching an ESPN SportsCenter show.
"Hey dad, how's it going." I said as I took a seat on the coach.
"Pretty good, finally an off day. How'd the tournament go yesterday?"
"We lost in the third round to the Ballstars. Then coach blasted at me afterwards saying I shot the ball too much."
"Oh, is that right?"
"Yeah, I mean sometimes I feel the need to step up, nobody else on the team really does anything besides me."
"Mhmmm, well you see that's where you're wrong. If you consider yourself a good guard, you should have a strong ability to analyze your teammates strengths and weaknesses and be able to make them look good by acknowledging what they do best."
"I wish it was that easy. Defenses destroy all that crap."
"It's all about being a student of the game Mike. It's not all about just having the talent, you've got to know the game as well. Situational basketball knowledge is a strong aspect."
"And how do I learn this?" I asked.
"It's all about learning from your mistakes basically. Being aware and thinking before you act . . . I'll ask you this, can you tell me any mistakes you made during that tournament?"
"Uhhh, uhhh" I stammered trying to think of something. "No, I can't."
"See and because of that, you're not going to know any better and you'll continue to make the same mistakes over and over."
"That makes a lot of sense, dad. Thanks."
"That's what I'm here for Mike. You got any homework."
"Yeah, a project from Biology class. I'm about to work on it now."
"Alright."
• • •
My phone notification started blowing up out of no where from the edge of my bed. I picked it up to see the familiar Kik usernames from some of my old Central teammates at the lock screen. I swiped the screen and it took me to the maximum eight member group Kik message.
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The most ironic thing was that just last year I was sitting on the bench on the freshman roster and a low prestigious school and now it was the exact opposite to this day.
I looked forward to meeting up with my old friends if we were ever to play them in a tournament.
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