I remember watching the scoreboard change. We went from being down five points to being down eight. It was time for a water break as I went over to the bench. The other coach shook my hand, and tapped my back, signaling it had been a great four years of playing against him. As I walked from his side of the bench to my side many memories were flying through my head. Some were good like the out of town tournaments, the singing in the car with my teammates, and having camp outs in our coaches’ front yards. Some were bad, like bus rides home after a tough loss, fouling out when you just wanted to play, running for punishment, and fighting through injuries.
I sat on the bench with my water in my hand when I looked at the scoreboard again. We were down by ten now, with not much time left to go. A game that was so close was now slipping away from us. I sat there with my head at my knees, halfway trying to catch my breath and halfway trying to focus, but I couldn’t watch the clock. I couldn’t watch the game.
My coach grabbed me by the jersey and put me back in. Less than a minute, down ten. The time was stopped. I went in for my best friend. She walked off the court and looked me in the face. I could see how heartbroken she was. I looked at the clock again, thirty seconds. Thirty seconds to score ten points. I remember dribbling down the court and passed the ball off. I watched a shot barely miss. Fifteen seconds. I looked over at my best friend on the bench. I looked at the school we were playing against. They were our rival school, yet we were friends with the girls on the team. One of the girls on the rival team was a good friend of mine. She looked hurt for me and for my team. We grew up playing against each other, and now we never would again. That moment, the moment at fifteen seconds was the moment I realized it was over.
No one thought I would cry. Basketball was my second sport and it had been a very mentally draining season for me. All season long I wanted it to be soccer season. I would look out of the windows of my high school at the turf field that was covered in snow and just want to be there. We had six basketball seniors. I was the one who wanted out. There were plenty of times that season I had told myself I wasn’t coming back. I wanted to quit.
At fifteen seconds left, tears starting pouring down my face. It was over and the realization of it hit me like a truck. I would never step out onto a basketball court with the intensity that I had that day ever again. I would never get that feeling and frustration of fouling out again. I would never feel my lungs burning at practice from our intense basketball conditioning ever again. No more fun basketball games at practice. No more sitting in the locker room having talks after the game. No more out of town tournaments. No more team bonding with the girls I grew up with.
The buzzer went off and it was over, just like that. In the blink of an eye after years of playing, hundreds of games, and hours of practice, everything was over. We shook hands, and my friend from the other team just hugged me. She knew how upset I was. I went down into the locker room to have our final locker room talk. I could barely breathe. I had never felt so heartbroken before. I went into the bathroom and felt the need to throw up, it felt like my heart had literally been ripped out of my chest. I went back into the room to see our assistant coaches. They were teary-eyed to let us seniors go. The juniors were crying; they didn’t want us to leave. I looked at my freshman. I had tried to make her feel as comfortable as she could her first year on varsity, she was upset too. We were a family, and we would never all be in the same place ever again. We had a rough final talk. I could barely listen. I couldn’t believe it was actually happening. We finally got up and left. It was over.
Looking back on it, basketball was very mentally draining for me. I went through a time period where I was confident in my game, even though it was so unique and different that a lot of my teammates. Then, I had a coach who just crushed my confidence. Due to that experience, it took a while for my confidence to be built back up to half of what it used to be.
Those 15 seconds were a moment that had so much of an impact on my life. I realized I was so upset because I never truly pushed myself to my fullest potential. I let myself not work as hard in basketball because I was confident in another sport. I stopped practicing during the off season, I stopped doing the things that I needed to do to better myself. I loved basketball. I loved the sport and I loved playing it, but I didn’t love playing scared. I stopped fully pushing myself when it came to sprints, and drills. I lost focus. I didn’t work as hard as I could have.
A lot of athletes feel sad on their last game, maybe even devastated. They leave the field or court wishing that they could just have one more game. They want it back. A lot of things that you realize looking back on your sports career is how you wish you would have worked harder. You wish you would’ve sprinted all those sprints until your lungs literally could not take it anymore. You wish you would’ve stayed those extra minutes after practice to practice shooting, hitting, or whatever it may be that you were struggling with.
My senior year I started to regain my confidence after two years of it being completely destroyed. I took that time after practice to work on the things that I needed to work on. I worked hard. However, I wasted two years of my time playing losing confidence and because of that not trying as hard. My confidence was never fully regained, but it made progress. Now I have to live with wondering what could’ve happened if I would have tried harder and never let anything get in my way.
This is my advice to anyone still playing the game that they love. You need to run every single sprint the hardest that you can. Practice outside of practice. Don’t only work on the things that you are good at, work on the things you are bad at too. Just because one coach doesn’t believe in you doesn’t mean that there aren't plenty of other coaches out there who do. Enjoy your teammates and spend as much time with them as you can. Go into every single game with a positive outlook. You are going to make mistakes, every single athlete does, do not get down on yourself because of them. Play with confidence and try your best go to out of your sports career with no regrets. If you do this, your fifteen seconds left will be a bittersweet feeling, not a devastating one.
