Losing

There is something to be said for losing. Have you ever been involved in something and you work hard for it? You do your best and you strive for greatness, but you just don’t get what you want? This was the story of the school basketball tournament.

It all started out when the teams were “chosen” aka “selected” by a group of four of the students. They got together before the tournament started and divided up the teams the way they wanted them to be. They each picked their favorite players that they liked to play with and then gave the rest to Monte’s Team. This would have been fair if Monte had a choice in who he wanted on his team, but there was no choice they just said, “The teams were picked and here are the people on your team.” Monte and I had been playing together in the mornings and we wanted to be on the same team, but they had put me on a kid’s team that everybody calls “50.” He actually does look a lot like 50 Cent in all honesty…

Anyways, it wasn’t fair to begin with and so I told Monte that they should make sure the teams were actually not selected, but picked. He didn’t want to make a fuss about it because he isn’t a very “confrontational type guy” and so he just went to 50 and asked him if he could trade his best player for me. Naturally, this was a terrible idea because before this tournament I could hardly even dribble! The player Monte wanted to trade is a really good player, so naturally, 50 obliged.

So now, let me describe what is left on our team. We have Gonjowk, a 14 year old boy who played basketball for the first time in his life one month ago. We have Jerald, a super star soccer player who tried basketball for the first time in his life about a month and a half ago. Then we have Wajkir, a kid who can shoot alright, but can’t really dribble. Then there is Nahid, a girl who complains if you don’t pass her the ball a lot, even though she can’t catch it, and has a really negative attitude. Then there is me, “Mr. I Swam in High School” and never really developed his basketball skills. Finally, there is Monte a guy who played in high school and was a killer post, but also can’t really dribble. There’s our team.

Now let me describe the basic gist of every other team. Every team has at least three kids that play regularly here at school and then there is us.
We played our first game and got completely demolished by 50’s team because it was made up of 7 guys who play regularly. We played really hard and got it to where they only beat us by 20 points, but still we got rocked. I took on the position of the team leader because I had the most energy and tried to encourage them as they walked off of the court with their heads bowed. It didn’t do much because we had made a ton of mistakes during our game and were straight up laughed at by the students watching.

Monte and I decided we’d have a team dinner and so we had our team over. They came, we had a great time, and the bonding began to start happening. It didn’t matter so much anymore that we’d gotten our butts kicked because we had a great time together and the game was over.
The next game came along and, once again, we lost, but only by nine. We played hard and got to the point where we were working together alright, but we couldn’t beat the ability of the other team because they could actually score; even though we were an offensive juggernaut. This time we didn’t have a team dinner because we didn’t have the time and it also just seemed like the students were too discouraged. Monte and I were pretty pissed off about it because the teams were chosen so unfairly. We both don’t really like to lose. At this point I was thinking about how Monte had screwed everything up by not being aggressive about choosing teams, but I let it go because “let the dead past deal with its own dead” to quote my good buddy Dickinson!

The 3rd Game came around and this time the game was CLOSE! We started to really start to work together and reach the point of where we could play together as a team, but I’m going to call the excuse that most sore losers call- the Refs. This tournament was pretty much bogus on the end of fouls. There was no limit to how much you could foul and there were no free throws, just a pass from out-of-bounds. We ended up losing by only six because they literally fouled us so many times in the last two minutes that they ran down the clock. We had a team dinner and had a great time once again. Monte and I made great food and I promised them ice cream if we won, but decided to buy ice cream anyways.

The final game came today in which we played another team that had lost all of their
games, but not because they have a bad team. The team captain is one of those guys that is a serious ball hog and they had no team chemistry; just a bunch of individuals. I was stoked going into this game because I knew this was our chance.
The game started out pretty good and the score was even, we were playing pretty well, but one of the other SM’s started getting really mad at me during the game and was telling me to not touch him- IT’S A GAME OF CONTACT! I kept right along defending him, but he started throwing elbows and just straight up pushing me. I wasn’t too worried about it because I’m a lot bigger than he is and I was still winning the ball so I wasn’t worried about it. The game progressed and it began to get pretty rough, the other SM straight up pushed Gonjowk for defending him and the guys on the other team were playing really rough with our team girl.

The score stayed close until the last quarter. They started just making every shot that they would throw up and half of the students stopped playing defense. I rolled my ankle in the last six minutes, again, but kept playing anyways. We ended up losing the game by 14 points and that was it.

I walked off the court just straight up pissed! I wanted to play another quarter, I was still ready to go, but it was over. A lot of the kids watching rubbed it in our faces that we’d lost, I just said, “Ya, they played well and walked away.”
The other team was made up of 7 guys who knew how to play and then there was our team. We didn’t know how to play, but dang we were playing hard! I’m not used to losing, but there is only so much you can do. I high fived my team and said, “We did great guys. We played hard.” I was feeling the same way they were, angry, but it was over.

Losing is something that is never easy- especially when things seem so unfair. I can walk away from this proud though. I went from making four points in the first game to making 18 points in our last game and I know that each one of the students on the team gained more confidence in themselves from it. They can actually play basketball now! I will end with a quote I read one time and truly do hold dear, “A man can learn more from one defeat then a thousand victories.”