Freshman on Varsity

By: Marielle Charron

This is my first year of high school. I recently attended basketball team try-outs and made varsity. As a freshman, that was great! My first home game was soon to come. Do you know what a home game means? It means a ton of your high school peers sitting in the crowd with there eyes glued on you just so they can form their own opinions about each one of the players. How good you are or not. Even though practices were going great, we had practiced everyday after school. I loved it. Then we had out scrimmage against Williamstown High School. That was definitely a wake up call for me. I realized how much I would have to step it up to prove to everyone that deserved to be on this team. I was so nervous, shaking in my red and white nike basketball shoes as we came out of the locker room as an eleven player, Twinfield, varsity basketball team. Before we ran out I looked back on the try-outs. On everything I had to do to get myself in this place. I had three long days of endurance stretching, calorie burning, strength training, and basic basketball skills that I’ve known since I was probably in 4^th grade. I went through the struggle of trying to figure out what the coaches were saying on the sidelines as they observed us play, but of course they had a piece of paper in front of their faces so not a single player could even attempt to see what they were saying. Everyday the same thing, running, running, and more running. All of this prepared me for my varsity basketball season, and my very first game.

The warm-up music was blasting, I could feel the floor shaking as we were getting ready to run out, and pump up the crowd. We began with lay-ups, I must have missed at least half of them, because I was so nervous that I could hardly focus. Do I really belong on this court right now? I thought to myself right before the buzzer sounded, you know, the one that makes all the little kids stop what there doing and pay attention. At least for a little while anyway, before their minds get over run with how they can ask their parents to give them money for candy at the concession stand. The National Anthem was sung and the tip off started the game. I was sitting on the bench for almost the whole first quarter, as I expected, being a freshman on varsity. My name was called and I went up to sit next to the coach, I knew I was going in. My stomach felt like it was tied tighter than a hangman’s noose. I took of my warm-ups and checked in. The ball went out of bounds and I was running onto the floor taking another players position. Everyone was cheering, I could hardly hear myself think, let alone hear the point guard calling the plays. I was posting up just like I had learned in practice and basketball camps I had attended during the summer. I used my shoulders to push the player from the other team who was guarding my back, pivoted, head faked, and shot. There it was, the first two point of my high school varsity basketball playing career. I proved to everyone that doubted a freshman on varsity could play that well, and myself that I did belong to on that team.