Baller

Over the holidays I went to THREE high school basketball games. It took me back to the day when I played a little ball myself.

See, I grew up in McPherson, Kansas. I know you're thinking, "What's that got to do with anything?" Well...McPherson is a bit of a basketball mecca. For example, the boys have won 10 state basketball championships and the girls have 7 championships of their own. If they weren't champions much of the time they were second, third or forth. I'm too lazy to look up exact statistics, but you have to trust me on this. I don't think anyone from high school reads this blog, if you do...confirmation please? ( :

So, I played ball. I know, I'm currently a crafty, chubby, massage therapist, bakin' fool but at one point in my life I was an athlete. Weird, right?

Basketball started around 2nd grade in recreational leagues at the YMCA. By 6th grade we were competing against our peers to be on independent teams. It was a bit of a selective process. Then from 6th grade through high school you played during the winter season and the summer. Fall was volleyball season and spring was track time. I have no idea how many games I played. Lots.

I have no idea how many games my parents sat through...remember they had three kids doing this. I think their butts are permanently imprinted with wood grain from the bleachers. I also think about how expensive it was, sure we had uniforms that were handed down from the high school, but we were always buying t-shirts, tournament fees, space rental fees and shoes at $100 a pop.

Back to my time playing ball, so part of the reason that the programs are so successful is that the high school program has it's fingers in all the years leading up to our sophomore year. As sweet, awkward, energetic 6th graders we began running the primary high school offense. In 7th grade we became a team of 12 girls who started winning games. By 8th grade we had been playing together for two years and there wasn't much room for other people on our team. There's this instinctive quality you're looking for in good basketball players, where you can predict each other's cuts and rolls and picks. We were those girls.

Our schools were big enough that 9th grade was separate from the JV and Varsity. By the time we moved up the ranks enough and stuck through all the years of playing, we were pretty aggressive players. As sophomores we merged in with the two classes above us and were separated from our team labeled by the grade we were in, to the high school basketball team.

High school basketball was scary. I'm not going to lie. I am not a thick-skinned person. The head coach was a foot stomper, yeller who expected perfection from his girls. He made me cry more than once. And scared the bejeebers out of me.

My junior year of high school I tore my ACL. It was a long process of healing, especially when you factor in the second surgery 6 months after the ACL to have my meniscus trimmed. Basketball and I were through.

And that is the story of when I was a baller.

[I loved that at Matt's basketball games they have an "honorary captain" who is one of the kids from the elementary school. That person would be the little boy sitting next to Matt. The other kid just walked up and plopped himself down on the bench. It's not in this picture, but the majority of the time he was chowing down on a big box of popcorn and chatting the honorary kid's ear off.]