Heart Of A Champion

Early Days

            "Hey kid, you're up." Coach said in the fourth quarter to let me sub in for the fouled out player. It was a game that we needed to win.

            "The Freshmen have 67, trailing by 7 against the Juniors. 4 minutes left in the game." I overheard the announcer say while listening to the coach. I can't even believe we're losing by that much and I'm being subbed in the game.

             Christian takes the heaviest load of the things to be done for the last 4 minutes. He needs to shoot the ball everytime he's open in the clutch, and for you to even try to do that, you'll need a lot of courage inside you're heart.

              He takes a three, and it's in. Four more points. That's all we need. There's still 3:37 left in the clock. An opponent makes a layup just before the shot clock buzzer sounded. No one ever made a shot until the 2 minute mark, and that basket was from us. It was a three pointer from  John. 3 points more to tie. It's only a one possession game. Mark lays it up and in, lowering the lead to one while there are still 1 and a half minutes left in the game. A timeout was called and I looked at the scoreboard. 47.3 is the only time left. Last ten seconds of the shot clock and the whole team was in the mood for motion. When I saw my teammate looking at me and giving me a little nod, I knew that it was about time. He passed me the ball inside and I posted up on my man. 5 seconds remaining in the shot clock and I needed to do it. I go with the hook that I've already mastered a few years ago, but I didn't make the shot. Great, putting my team in jeopardy.

                  John fouled his man, giving him his fifth and final one just to send the opponent to the charity stripe.
He made both. We were down by three and I didn't have any choice but to shoot the three that the defense gave me with only three seconds left. I hoisted it up, and, it rolled on the rim too long, enough for everyone to feel nervous about what's about to go down. I didn't make it. We lost the game and we're out of the tournament. I took the blame from our coach.

                John followed me after the game. "I know that you were not at fault," he said. "For two reasons," "One, no one found the courage to shoot at that time." "And two, it's normal for a player to hoist it up when he's as open as that, it just didn't go our way.
 

Requested by: Pong