Judgement Day

I was dripping with sweat; my hands could not even grip the ball. I was so nervous, but also so ready. I did all the workouts as hard as I could, and even though some individuals played better than me, I still thought it was a done deal. The coach was going down the line cutting certain players right there and then, when he got to me, I thought he was going to skip right over me, but he didn’t. He told me I was not ready to be on this team yet, and I needed to work on my game and tryout next year. I was devastated; I could not believe it, I had thought I deserved to be on that team, but the coach did not. Without that day, I would not be here playing basketball on a scholarship for Wheeling Jesuit University. That day taught me so much. I came into that basketball tryout overconfident, like I had made the team already because I thought I was that good. In eighth grade I was the man in basketball. I could not be stopped. I was always the first one picked and always got the ball whenever I wanted because my teammates knew I could score. When I got into the basketball tryout though, everybody was good and I should have worked twice as hard as I did. This meant that everyone was one step ahead of me, quicker than me, faster than me, and stronger that me. Even though I was devastated about being cut from the team, the experience taught me not to be overconfident, work harder, and always go into something knowing I have to prove myself. I was so arrogant coming into that tryout like the spot on the team was already mine. That is not a very good trait to have because nothing is ever given in life; there is always someone out there trying to be better than someone else. I was so overconfident that I didn’t do as many drills as I should have, or conditioned as much as I needed too. There were people at the tryouts that could shoot better than me, play better defense, basically doing everything better than I could that day. Next time I told myself I would not