Unexpected to Everyone… Including Me

My freshman year I made a big impression of myself to everyone on the basketball team and to everyone in the stands. I was starting on varsity as the point guard, which is a very stressful and big position. I had to hold a lot of weight on my shoulders and my teammates depended on me. Throughout the season I handled the position very well, and I was recognized by a lot of coaches from other teams. Other coaches would ask my coach about me and I had college coaches coming up to me my freshman year of high school. All of this was stressful, but it was nothing like this next stressful and unexpected situation.

At the end of each season players get awards and sometimes if they are picked, they get to play in a game where the north plays the south. My freshman year I was chosen to play in the freshman north vs. south game. This was a huge accomplishment for me and my parents were so proud of me. This opportunity was extremely unexpected for me. We got all of the information we needed about the game. Me being a freshman and being shy, I was nervous for this game. I would be playing with girls that I did not even know. A few weeks went by and the day finally had come. The game was being held at Central Maine Community College, so I and my whole family went there and when we walked through the door there was a big table with a bunch of t-shirts. The guy behind the table asked for my name and what size t-shirt I had wanted. My mom gave him my name and the size shirt I wanted, but apparently they only had large and extra large left. So I was the only girl with a t-shirt two sizes too big. We had to wait for the game before to finish up and while we were waiting a guy walked up to me and my mom and pulled my mom aside. The guy who gave us all of the information about the game thought I was a senior. So he ended up giving us all of the wrong information! So now it is almost game time, and I found out that I am going to be playing with seniors! I panicked, I did not want to play, but my mom made me do it for the experience. I got out on the court and was so nervous. Not only did I not know anyone but they were all three years older than me and also they were the best seniors in the state. In warm-ups I got to shoot a few times but I did not really want to do anything because I was too scared. It was game time and obviously I did not start, in fact, I was the last one on the bench to go in. I was nervous, but I knew that I just had to play. I went in for a few minutes and I did not really touch the ball. I was taken out and was put back in after a while. When I was in the game I felt a little confident because I was playing good defense. I stole the ball and dribbled down the court and pulled back to shoot and it went in. My family, of course, was going crazy. They were so proud of me. The game was over and my team won by one point. I got many hugs from my family after the game. It was completely unexpected for my family and me to play so well during that game due to the circumstances.

This event in my life kind of relates to the movie “The Waterboy” because not many people believed in Bobby Boucher. Everyone thought that he was bad at football, that he was just the water boy, but Bobby proved to them that he was more than that. The first time that Bobby went out to play and showed his talent the crowd went wild and everyone was cheering for him. Once everyone saw how good Bobby was at football, everyone wanted him to be on their team. Bobby Boucher became a very popular person. I feel like the movie “The Waterboy” relates to my story because nobody thought that I would have been able to play, they all thought that I was not that good but I went out and proved to them that I am good. Bobby Boucher did the same thing, people bullied him but he went out and proved to everyone that he was good at football. It was completely unexpected for me to go out and actually play kind of decent and it was unexpected for Bobby Boucher to go out and play football and become a big star. The situation I had been put through was really unexpected, but how I handled it was even more unexpected not just to me but unexpected to everyone.

Photo by Freddie Peña on Foter.com / CC BY-NC