I play basketball, as is a common fact amongst those whom I regularly talk to outside Massassi. I had my first game of the season last night, and I must say I did pretty good.

I'm also a defensive player mainly. 5'6", 130lbs, I have some weight to throw around. I finally got to guard someone other than the short fat kid who just takes up space this year as well, because someone finally realized "hey, Sam doesn't suck at defense!".

I also have a nice vertical jump. Any pass thrown over me? I knock it down. Rebounds? I'll either rebound, or if it's really high I end up spiking it (volleyball style) out of bounds. Everyone loves to have me play defense. I'm freaking good at it.

Oh, and you know you're playing hard when you foul someone. I generally don't get ANY fouls. I fouled 3 people last night. I was playing freakin' hard, and outplayed 2 or 3 of the other players on the court (on our team) atleast, when you compare defense to defense. And on offense I was doing pretty good too, but when you have a 6'2" kid posting up on the foul line..hard to resist that. So I don't suck at basketball.

I was one of the fastest running, hardest playing, most aggressive players on the court, a rare thing for me. We line up to shake hands with the other team..we're going...ok. Getting to the coaches...ok...they patted him on the back and he did almost nothing except get trapped in the corner and try too look like a stud (he failed miserably by the way). I'm bound to get some sort of congratulations...but no. A hand shake and it was over.

We get in the locker room. Everyone's raving about not-so-studly's offensive drives which directly disobeyed the coach, royally ****ed up some plays, and just looked stupid. Everyone's patting the 6'2" kid on the back saying good game for posting up on the foul line.

I rebounded, as has been said. But mainly on defense. I boxed out, but mainly on defense. Who does the coach congratulate for all these things? Not me, but everyone else who did these things.

I did however have one guy from the other team, after the game, come up and tell me I did a very excellent job. That was all.

I take pride in that I do what I'm told to do, play harder than a bunch of the kids on my team, and don't act like a douche. And I'm not "putting myself in the spotlight" I'm being 100% honest here. I'm not angry, I'm not mad, I'm not going to get all emo on you guys. I take pride in that I kept a good attitude, even when I had BS calls on me. I never once glared at the refs, I never once yelled at them, I never once questioned a call. I can't say the same for the rest of my team, one of which who stood up and screamed right in the ref's face. It was blatantly obvious the calls were slated towards helping the other team, but I took it in stride and just played harder. I take pride in that I'm of a higher quality than my team mates.

No one respects the defense. But knowing I played a much better game than I'm given credit for and to be honest played better than the ones who got the credit is good enough for me.

There is a saying: "Offense sell tickets. Defense wins championships."

I know the feeling. I play defense in soccer and defensive midi in lacorsse (which is why I coach the defense in lacrosse now). The casual fan doesn't give a flying **** about defense, but the people who know their **** do, and getting compliments from those people always meant more to me.

I would dunk on you soo hard it wouldnt even be funny.

Some how I can't imagine you playing better than the next chubby kid.

Unless you're playing against chubbier kids.

Suck it up

you'll get your shot to shine in high school (if you elect to keep playing) .. if you're good enough for your def and not terrible otherwise scouts'll be looking for you

hahahahaha

oh wait.

You are gonna sit the bench in high school kid. You have no shot.

<hotlinked image>

Wow that's very... funny... and sexy... I suppose.

And this is why you dont hotlink.

Bleh, sports.

Hmm, no wonder I always got into defense >:|

Dammit!

I was trying to post this.

Haha, we speak the same language.

Suck it up Sam, you don't need anyone elses recognition to know you're good at something. If you're confident, and you have results to prove as much, other people's lack of recognition is your overstatement of your abilities.

If you played football (American) it would be a completely different story. Any defensive player that gets sacks, forces fumbles, interceptions, or just has a bunch of tackles is a hero. At Mizzou, one of our defensive ends (Brian Smith) gets the loudest cheers when the lineup is announced, second only to our quarterback.

Moral of the story: play football.

Because there aren't positions in football that don't get the kind of respect they should. You know, like the offensive line or the fullbacks.

Yeah, only thing O-Line gets is criticized. Fullbacks pretty much aren't noticed. Though in college ball, at least with the offense we're running, more often than not there's not even a fullback. Eveything is run from a Singleback or Shotgun formation (either with trips or with 4 or 5 WRs).

I think there're positions like that in all team sports. Mine was rugby where I played lock (aka 2nd row). Whereas the backs may talk about how many tries, penalties and conversions they scored most locks talk about the times they even get to touch the ball. We're support players, everytime there's a breakdown, a ruck or maul we're expected to be in there doing most of the pushing and ripping other players out. We often do the lifting in line-outs and we're the most horizontal players in scrums and often get referred to as the "powerhouse". However, if we ever do cock-up people notice and criticise, when we play well, things go smoothly and they don't notice so much. It's just one of those things.
A really good dump tackle though, gets the entire crowd roaring

Damnit. I'm nearly outheighted and outweighted by a 13-year old.

So you're good at you want people to tell you you're good?

Try turning the roles around, what if you were rubbish but trying to improve and the coach only congratulated the star player?

You don't need to be congratulated as you're obviously doing great without being talked up by everyone. Talk up someone who's good and they get an ego and start playing badly.

When i'm playing ultimate frisbee the worst thing anyone can say to me is "but you can catch anything" because it puts pressure on me to live up to that everytime, I play much better when i'm not trying to impress.

I know. I'm just saying that I take pride in the fact I DON'T revolve around those things, and am overall a better sportsman than most of the rest of the team, and DON'T let it bother me. I get my ego and pride boost from the satisfaction of how I played, not from outside comments.

don't you play on a mixed gender team?

Yes.

Sucks because the whole team has to be put it because our coach is nice like that. There's only 1 girl who doesn't totally suck at basketball on the team.

Females playing basketball is stupid. It's completely boring. They lack the height and physical coordination to make the game interesting. It's worse when they play one the same team as the males.

I know how you feel, Sammo. I was a defensive player. I would only score 4 or 6 points per game, but my rebounds were always in the double digits. Then I learned a fun little thing: "shake n' bake", as it's called. It's what made Charles Barkely and Hakeem Olajuwan so awesome. Watch them (or others) do it, and practice as often as you can. You'll be making triple doubles in no time.

I still prefer rebounds and blocked shots, though. I can jump faily high. When I was 15, I was 5'8, and could stand underneath the rim, jump straight up, and hit steel. I can easily dunk now (well, after I get back in shape), but I always loved outjumping someone and grabbing the ball right out of their hands.

I need to work on fighting harder and getting the rebounds. I'm always in a bad position, or dumb**** 6'2" always grabs them right out of my hands, even though we're on the same team.

"Did you explain to them that our fundamentals make up for our inability to dunk?"

"Yes, Femputer. Men still make fun of us."

"Then I sentence the men to death, by snoo-snoo."

That's exactly what I was thinking about when I wrote it.

The other day I was in the gym at school, and the girls were playing a scrimmage game. It was realy dull, like watching children at a park, except the kids tend to be more violent.

Futurama never gets old