Thirty years ago, I played basketball for my high school team. Yup, I'm old!
I was a senior and we won the Section III championship game, then went on to play in the State Tournament. Our small school district hasn't had another team with a better record since, nor have they won a sectional title since.
I played forward, which when I stop to think of it now, I'm amazed. I'm all of 5 feet 5 inches and I'm definitely not what you would consider very tall. I'm not extremely short either, but 5' 5" is nothing today in girls' high school basketball. In fact, that's considered a real shrimp.
I played forward, which is normally reserved for the tall girls, basically, because I was pretty scrappy. That's right! Meek, mild Laurie was a terror on the court. How did I get to be that way? Well, I had two brothers (one 3 years older and one 3 years younger). I played basketball with boys for years.
I played football with boys, too, but my time was way before they would have even considered letting a girl play. I mean, really, remember, I'm old!
I remember a local guy once asking hubby where our son got his speed from. The boy is extremely fast. The local guy saw him play in a high school baseball game where the boy hit the ball pretty far. Maybe he didn't hit it so far as to get a home run, but far enough to get a triple. Well, when DS has it in his mind that this is a home run hit, well, it becomes a home run hit. He can run like the wind. It was a home run!
Hubby told the local guy, "He gets it from his mother!" The guy looked at me like I'd grown three heads...I guess he thought hubby was just being nice to me!
But when all your day is consumed with playing ball with your brother, you become a wicked tom boy and you usually can do things that other girls can't.
I remember one of my classmates told me that she loved watching me play basketball, because I looked like one tough ballerina. I didn't quite understand what she meant by that so she explained, "You look so graceful and light-footed out there on the court. Then BAM! You're playing like a guy!"
In the sectional final game, I had 10 points! Yup! I could play basketball back then!
What got me thinking about all this? Well, the girls' basketball team this year is playing their first sectional game tomorrow night (postponed from earlier due to weather) and the paper has been inundated with talk about that 1979 basketball team from when I was a senior!
It got me to thinking.......if I tried to play now, I'd probably fall over heaving up my guts and be unconscious within a few minutes!
How does that happen?
4 comments:
"one tough ballerina" lol, that's a great image! Graceful, yet a force to be reckoned with.
That's really cool that no team has been able to beat the record you set!
It must be really neat, I think, to live in the same area where you grew up. To be a part of that culture for a long term. I mean, your paper is talking about something that happened 30 years ago, and you were a part of it then and here now to enjoy reminiscing!
It's interesting, isn't it? The things that were important to us, the activities we dedicated our time to, completely change after high school/college. It's fun to be nostalgic sometimes :)
Yes, it was very neat to go back to the same old high school and the same old gym and watch my son play basketball there too.
Yes, the things that are so very important to us kind of fade, then things like the newspaper printings, bring the memories back bright and vivid. It's nice to have those memories!
One of the girls that played with me on the team made copies of all the newspaper articles from back in 1979 and laminated them for me. What a treasure!
How does that happen? Age, pregnancy, gravity, and sitting behind a desk for umpteen years.
I never played a sport but I was pretty fast too. Now, if I tried to run, I'd knock myself unconscious.
As the older folks say around here--energy is wasted on the young.
Ehart! LOL! Energy is wasted on the young.
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