Preface: Dear Reader,
I’ve played basketball for the last 12 years of my life and I hope to continue it after this week. I am a junior and played basketball for two years at this school. One year freshman B, and one year Sophomore team. This year I’m hoping to make JV, a goal that I have strived for since I was in 7th grade. I will account my days on this blog throughout the week, and plan on updating it every night. It should be quite the experience.

Monday (before tryouts): As I walk through the halls I see my fellow basketball compadres almost everywhere I go. The usual “hey man,” or “sup playa” is replaced by “4 more hours…” or “enjoy these last few hours of your life man.” SME basketball tryouts are intense. They test you both physically and mentally, and can break people to the point of legitimately quitting the sport of basketball. Like I said, its intense. I’ve been awaiting this week since last March, when my Sophomore basketball experience came to a close. We finished at a respectable 16-3 and last year was arguably the most fun I’ve ever had with a team playing basketball. We had eight players on that team, and only five are returning to try out, due to injury, and tiredness through football. After writing down all of the contendants multiple times, and trying to compare my own skills to theirs, I believe I can make it. I one had a friend, Garvin, who tried out for a college team. When he went up to visit the college, the basketball coach told him he had one spot left, so he may not want to try out. Garvin simply looked at him and said, “The spot is mine.” He ended up making the team, and now plays big time. This is the kind of attitude I plan on taking into this tryout. I’m a little nervous, and a little scared I may screw up big time. But we’ll see how it goes. We’ll see how this goes.

Monday (after): Lets just say I’m going to hurt tomorrow morning. First drill. First five minuets of tryouts, I get clocked in the face with an elbow. Welcome to basketball season. I wiped the blood off on my shirt so it wouldn’t get on the kid I was guarding and eventually it looked like I had just had a battle with Wolverine. But to be honest, I was alright with it. I think it made me look pretty tough, which doesn’t always suck when you are battling for spots. For the first half of tryouts I wasn’t too pleased with my play. I hadn’t shot a basketball in three days so my shot was about as good as Ron Artest’s. But luckily I made it up in some offensive drills, making two straight easy lay-ups before the station was over. The second half of the tryout was pretty rough. We ran sprints for about five minuets, then scrimmaged, then ran again. I have a feeling my legs are going to feel like jello tomorrow morning and tonight’s sleep is going to be a much needed one. The thing was was a little concerned with was after tryouts, Coach Hair had us all in a classroom and talked to us. After, he let all the seniors and sophomore’s go, but had the juniors stay. He then proceeded to tell us that he wasn’t going to keep all 14 juniors trying out, and was going to have to make some “tough cuts.” Not like that worried me or anything… not.