revised essay

Jacob Cavalho Personal essay
A couple of summers ago I found myself very bored, with an abundance of energy. See through out my life my summers have been spent at my Dina’s house with my cosines playing waffle ball in the back yard. But this summer is different because she took a job at a daycare. So we all just stay at home, no more base ball for me, damn I don't know what to do with my self. So I started to go for walks / runs to burn energy. Some times I would walk to Maple Wood Park and watch the guys play basketball. I would sit at a bench far enough away so I wouldn’t be asked to play. It wasn't because I was shy, far from it. It was because I couldn't play basketball to save my life. I had never really bothered to learn the sport because I always had baseball in the summer and football in the winter. Sure I have shot around before but never any thing serious. I defiantly wasn't about to enter a game with these guys who play every day. So I quietly sat and watched these guys move so fluidly around one another and I couldn't help but think that I could do that.
Football and baseball came naturally to me. My nick name in football was liquid because of the way I move with the ball. The ball never leaves my hands so all I have to think about is my feet. I'm not cocky I'm confident in my running ability. So now I'm thinking I could do this, it’s like football. Finally one day I man up and walk right to the court and wait for a new game to start up. See the way it works is everybody who wants to play will stand on the court and two captains will pick there teams. After what seemed like forever I didn't get picked for the first game. I was a little disappointed but these guys played all day so there would be plenty of chances. I waited. But after three games of standing awkwardly by the court, I spoke up. Big mistake, but I knew it would get me picked, it worked I got picked up. I was finally going to prove that I could do it. I received a pass, dripped a couple of steps and took off sprinting towards the basket. But after two seconds, the ball bounced off my foot and rolled away. I'm going to skip passed the rest of my first game. It was bad, I thought to myself I suck, I hate the sport, and I don't every want to play again.
In sports I have a problem where if I can't do something right or as good as I know I could do it. I will push myself with total disregarded for my body until I can do it. So I find a court that is very rarely used and practiced. I needed help badly so I enlisted the help of my friend Steve who is pretty good at basketball but has major knee problems to train me. After watching me he tells me I have three main problems. My feet move way to fast for my hands to keep up. I don't know how to handle the ball with the speed I move at. Also I have the worst shot he has ever seen. But he also tells me that I can be very good if I learn control. I tackle my first and second problems at the same time I learn to slow down my movements to keep control of the ball. That wasn't too bad now I could incorporate some of my football skills into the new game. Like jukes and spins I could easy move around Steve with ease. Now I had to take one my biggest problem my shot. “It doesn’t matter how fast I run or how sick your handles are if you cant score, no ones gonna care”. Steve told me one day as I ‘broke his ankles’ but horrible missed my shot. I can honestly say learning to shoot a basketball was the hardest thing for me to learn to do. Three years later my shot is still bad but I worked on it for a while that summer and got it to an acceptable level. This has taken up all of my summer but I had learned all of the stupid little rules of the game and could finally play at a respectful level. 　
I wanted to go back to the park but summer was over and cold weather makes it hard to play basket ball. Only a few guys would hang around the park on the weekends. So I made the best of it, of it playing one on ones and earning respect of some of the guys. I thought that I would finally be accepted into the basketball culture. I could exchange daps with the guys after games and feel a sense of brother hood. But then the first snow came and killed all that you can’t play in the snow impossible.
So that winter went by as normal I played football and shoved snow. But soon enough summer rolled in and I was ready. I walked right to the park and played all day that day it felt great. I still couldn’t shoot like them but I could dance around them in fluid like motions. I knew I could do it I thought to myself as I walked home after my first day. About half way through the summer the guys started talking about some thing called the black top torment. It takes place towards the end of summer ever summer. What the black top is they take an even number of people and they all play each other in one on one games to 7 in elimination basketball. I really wanted to be picked for this I wanted to prove to my self and them that I could compete in some thing that doesn’t come naturally to me. This was gong to be tuff there are guys who are like six foot five and have 50 pounds on me easy.
I guess I got lucky because I was asked to play by some of the guys that organized it. Maybe it was a joke to them but it took it seriously and got really focused on winning the whole thing I don’t care what anybody said. By the time black top started up I hadn’t made any friends they didn’t like the way I played I was to aggressive. I pushed the rules of the sport until they were about to break I was testing to see what I could get away with.
Finally the day was here time to prove myself black top had arrived. When they picked who was playing who in the first round they left me out. I wasn’t about to let that happen so I spoke up for myself and they said “o ya we must have forgot about you” I wanted to say that that was bull shit, but I keep my cool and said “what are you afraid to get beat by some kid who just learned the game you have been playing your whole life”. That did it, I was in but it was at a cost. They made me play the biggest and strongest guy for the first five rounds but I wasn’t afraid.
I knew to keep them moving to tire them out then it would be easy. The problem was they weren’t playing by anybodies rules. I was getting shoved, elbowed, or hit when ever I would put a clean move around them. Like I said I don’t have a lot of care for my body so I hung tuff and played though the abuse. The last game I played that day was in the sixth or seventh round it was against Tyree a rather larger man that dunked one of my missed shots to win the game. After the game I didn’t receive a good game from him or daps, just a "what did you expect" look from him in the rest of the guys.
Honestly it didn’t bother that much that I lost, it was that I didn’t have there respect that really got me down. After the game I walked away not because I was hurt it was just because that happened to be the last game of the day. I wasn’t going let them beat me mentally. The next day I made sure I was the first at the park. I couldn’t play but I was going to prove to them that I had heart.
I stayed on the side of the court all day that day and finally a much older guy came up to me and started talking. It was a guy that never played but always watched. You could tell knew a lot about life and probably has played more basketball than ever body there combined. He called me dumb in a lot of worst words but then he said that I must have the biggest ‘tennis balls” in the world to be playing with these guys as hard as I did. I never mentioned that I was the only white person there I played basketball with a bunch of black guys. Race doesn’t matter to me at all don’t get the wrong idea it never has though out school some of my closest friends of been black. He said don’t worry about the respect thing it will come with time. I didn’t say any thing to him I just listened and when he was done talking he held out his hand for daps, I completing daps and he walked away.
What I can take away from the whole experience is that, sports usually come easy to me but this one I’m still having problems with it. The fact that I pushed myself to stay with it until I learned how to do it right shows a lot of character. When I am having a hard time learning some thing new, I always think back to the black top and know I can do anything.