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The Basketball Team


The Basketball Team
Some people that know me. May have known that it took me four tryouts to make a basketball team as a child. Yep, it was seventh grade rec. I didn’t make it. I tried out for the eighth grade middle school team, didn’t make it. And it was quite a small town that I was residing in then.  My class in eighth grade was about sixty-two students in all. I gave it rest. Then I tried out again as a junior in high school. I didn’t make it.

Finally, in my senior year of high school, in a class of two hundred and sixty-two.  It was a regional high school. I made the varsity basketball team. Barely. Before I did, I can say this. I liked the kids who were on the team before I’d even made a team. I wasn’t friends with anybody on any of the teams I’d tried out for. I was the kid who kept to themselves, for the most part.

All the teams, the ones I didn’t make and the one I did make, I respected the results. I respected the individuals that made up all the teams. Three of the five coaches, deep down I didn’t care for their attitude in general. They were people I knew outside of the tryouts. And later on in life, I found out I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Yet, I went about my business and landed right where I should of, with the coach and his assistant who really understood me.  That appears to be quite ironic to me. How everything landed with such perfect timing for me.

Those years that I didn’t make the basketball teams, I had no animosity towards the teams, nor the children that made those teams. I knew those picked over me, were good at the game of basketball. I knew I was not built for basketball. Yet, I tried.  And as much as it hurt to fail, I still tried. I didn’t give up.  And I had no ill-will towards those that made it. And neither to those who gave me a failing grade in the tryouts. As well, I was awed by the athleticism of others that I did not have. Their athleticism, was the attraction that made me want to try out over and over and over again.  As well, I knew others who’d not made the basketball teams I’d tried out for. I practically felt just as bad for them as I did myself for my not making the teams.

What this all boils down to is what I have witnessed. Something that was despicable among anyone over the age of twelve. I saw ADULTS posting on social media, ‘if their candidate didn’t get the vote… they would never vote again.’ Well, that is what I would call in my day, ‘A SISSY’. ‘A MAMA’s Boy’. A BABY. SPOILED ROTTEN. There are plenty of derogatory words and phrases I could use here.  That my husband has heard.  I take the filter off with my hubby of over thirty-six years, and some special friends too.
In conclusion, if you can vote. If you’ve been complaining about who’s in charge or in office(s). And you don’t vote… You Are a SISSY! Because WE the PEOPLE, will eventually land right where WE should without you.  It’s not about you.  It’s about WE the PEOPLE… THE TEAM.---Jody-Lynn Reicher  

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