One point.
One single, solitary point.
That’s how much I helped the Union County High School girls basketball team in 1981.
No, not one point per game, but one point in an entire season!
Until I pulled this picture out recently to share with my friend Don Yaeger after reading his post about Beth Brooke (who had a MUCH better basketball career than I did), I would have sworn I played basketball my senior year. I now remember that it was my junior year. By senior year, I was a cheerleader, so I guess I cheered for girls’ games (if anyone did).
Kat wrote to this same prompt (read her post here).
Let’s just compare and contrast Kat’s basketball career with mine:
Kat: “I made every basketball team I ever tried out for because I was tall.”
Paula: “I made the only basketball team I ever tried out for because my school was just that small.”
Why did I play basketball?
There can’t have been a tryout process — this must have been an all-comers situation. I already pointed out the school was small (I had 82 students in my graduating class). I played basketball for the same reason I ran cross country and played tennis that year (then became a cheerleader the following year): I was obsessed with my weight. Excessive exercise was part of that equation. Sports burned calories, therefore I played sports
What did I learn from basketball?
I had no idea, before playing basketball (and, truthfully, while playing basketball) about the role of patterns and models in offenses and defenses. I’ve always been a words person. Putting “x’s” and “o’s” into strings of verbiage came much easier to me than the spatial thinking required to organize human beings into different variations in order to get a ball from one end of the court to another.
I think often about that one point I scored by making a free throw. Somehow, having a point in the books makes the season a bit less of a waste in my mind than a zero-point season would have. But I did participate in every practice (even if I didn’t really know my x’s from my o’s). Maybe my presence helped those players who had a clue — I’m sure I didn’t get them much to defend against, but maybe I helped them figure out offensive strategies when there were oblivious defensive players on the court.
I felt like a little bit less of a fraud when I was named the school’s scholar-athlete my senior year (obviously, the performance in the “scholar” column was a bit more stellar than my performance in the “athlete” column).
And would you LOOK at those knee socks? How much more dull would high school have been if I hadn’t gotten to wear those?!
I am linking up with Kat Bouska’s blog for the prompt “Did you play sports as a kid? Write about a memorable game.”
Wife of one, Mom of two, Friend of many. My pronouns are she/her/hers.
Hey, I give you credit for being on the court!
There’s that! Thanks! 🙂
As my Mom always said: The Lord loves effort!
Well done, Paula! 😉
Well yeah – there was no shortage of effort here, just skill ha ha ha.
I just commented on a post from a fellow blogger who responded to the prompt from Mama Kat’s Workshop and…my response involved basketball. Trust me, I was never a player, but that one item, a basketball, was the sum total of any gym activity when I was in parochial school. Physical Education was not high on the list of priorities back then, at least not in the Catholic school I attended. But, the nuns in school had an affinity for basketball and, during recess, always played on the boy’s side of the school (boys and girls were kept in separate parts of the building).
Had I been taller, or way more athletic, I might have developed a like for the game. And…gotta love those socks, Paula!
Stay safe!
That’s so funny, Patty! I wasn’t sure I was going to write about this, but between Don’s post about Beth Brooke and Kat’s post about dribbling (and her mom!), it just seemed the thing to do.
Wow…great memories. Our nephew started playing as a tot too and played for Villanova before being drafted by the Detroit Pistons.
He is #41 Saddiq Bey, his mother also played basketball in HS and college.
That’s amazing, Antionette!! I’ll check him out!
This was a fun read. Congrats on that free throw!!
Thanks, Abby!
Those knee socks are everything! 🙂 I don’t think I made very many points either if it makes you feel any better and I didn’t look nearly as good. lol
Ha ha ha — I *loved* your post. And I loved your mom for being so momlike about it all. I think my mom was just mystified that I was playing basketball at all. If you think THOSE knee socks are great, you should see the ones with my cheerleading outfit — the knee socks and the OXFORD SHOES for Heaven’s sake!!