Rant.
So, I don’t think I posted about this last week because I was busy with AP stuff, but some drama has happened recently concerning basketball.
I obviously didn’t get great play time at all in LA (or at any other tournaments, for that matter), so coach decided to move me down from the Gold Team (varsity level), to the Black Team (JV level). It is the single most insulting thing that has ever happened to me in my basketball career. Ordinarily, I would say, “Okay, this means that you just need to work harder”, but I honestly just don’t know what to do. I don’t even know why I wasn’t playing much in the first place. I’m pretty sure that it was because I needed to be more aggressive on offense; I can’t find anything major wrong with my game, though. For one, I don’t think that that’s a good enough reason to sit me pretty much the entire game, and, secondly, the only way for me to correct that issue is to actually play. How can I get better at scoring when I am never put in the game and given an opportunity to score? I just have no idea. Anyways, coach decided to tell me that he was moving me down before practice last Tuesday- which was fantastic. I don’t know how I was able to hold myself together during practice, but I just wanted to go home after he told me. I’m now over the initial shock of it all, and I’m just going to keep playing and improving my game through all of this. What else can I do?
That being said, things are getting testy with basketball at school as well. It’s the end of the school year, so everyone is mentally checking out. Fewer and fewer people have been at open gym, a couple people have gotten in fights, ect., ect. The coaches obviously aren’t happy, and yesterday we all got a nice lecture about it. I can understand why the coaches are upset; however, now that a few people have screwed up, they expect the worst of everyone. For example, I am one of the people who has been missing open gym recently. The thing is, I’ve had an AP exam to prepare for. It’s not like I’m just going home to sit and do nothing; I’m not staying after school because I legitimately have other stuff to do. Also, even on the days that open gym isn’t scheduled, the coaches expect people to stay after. On those days, I usually just go to my own gym because I have my own workout schedule, and I feel like I’m more productive when I work out alone. Yet, the coaches probably see me as being lazy for not staying after. To make things better, they compare everyone who don’t stay every day to the people who do. Yes, it’s great that those individuals are staying after to workout- I applaud them. However, the people who stay after the most are girls whose parents work late, so they don’t have another choice but to stay after school until they’re picked up. They don’t have the option to workout anywhere else. So, I constantly get negatively compared to them when I’m working out just as much as they are- if not more.
I’m just tired of coaches expecting the worst. Look, I’m not skipping open gym because I “don’t feel like staying”. I’m skipping because I have academics to work on. I don’t stay to shoot after school because I go to my own gym; I’m not just going home to be lazy.
Believe me coaches, I’m aware of how hard I need to work in order to be successful next year. I know that I can always do more to improve, but I’m not slacking off here, either. I’m trying to do all that I can.
