We Are The Champions!!!

I don't like basketball. I don't watch it on tv. I don't play it. I played when I was younger and my team was always in last place. The Whitemarsh Owls. We were really really bad. So when the athletic director for our school came to me and asked me to coach basketball at school I laughed at him and quickly said no way. When he came back a week later begging me because no one else would do it I said fine but with one condition. I would only coach the 6/7 grade girls team. I know nothing about coaching basketball so I figured at that level it would be all about teaching fundamentals. I can teach dribbleing, passing and shooting. So that is what I did.

The season started at the beginning of March with a one month break for intercession. The kids returned to school in mid-April and that is when the games started. I had 10 girls on the team and most of them had not played in an actual game before. I figured we would get slaughtered. Boy was I wrong. It turns out four of the ten girls could flat out shoot the ball. We were really good. We ended up going 6-1 on the season (we lost a game because we only had 6 players and they got tired) and getting the top seed in the All Aramco 6/7 Girls Basketball Tournament.

We had to go to Dhahran for the tournament. It took place this past Wednesday night. There were 6 teams in the tournament and all the teams had to play three games. Because we were the top seed we got a bye in the first round and only had to play 2 games. We easily won our first game and moved into the championship game to play against a team we beat handily earlier in the season. The problem was that they had gotten a whole lot better since we saw them and we were playing two games in a row. They had had an hour to rest. At one point we were up by 8 points but as the game wore on my girls started to get tired. They also happen to be very aggressive. We averaged over 20 team fouls per game! So on top of getting tired they started fouling out one after the next. We were in trouble.

By the time we got to 20 seconds left in the game the other team had pulled to within 2 points and they had the ball. They easily moved the ball through my second stringers and scored. Now there was 15 seconds left and we had the ball. We brought the ball down the court killing 5 seconds and I called a time out. 10 seconds left. We inbound the ball and dribble for 5 more seconds. I call our last time out. 5 seocnds left. The plan was to get the ball to our point gaurd and she would pass it up high to our forward who is our best shooter and she would take the final shot. It was like watching Hoosiers or one of those basketball movies. They ball gets in, the point gaurd looks to our shooter and she is wide open. 3 seconds. She throws it over everyones head and my best shooter gets the ball 15 feet out. 1.5 seconds. She never misses. Never. As she let the ball go I knew it was done. Slow motion. Bam!! She hit it as the buzzer sounded and we won!! Total chaos. We carrried her off the court and had one heck of a fun bus ride back home. Here is a picture taken just after the came. Wow. 23-21 And they're paying me for this?