Never Look Your Defender in the Eye, a descriptive essay on a basketball game

Never look your defender in the eye. Some say basketball is an easy game, but if it were, everyone would be playing it. In the locker room I hear the murmuring of the girls talking about their day and the rustling of them getting their jerseys and shoes on. Coach walks in, the room silences. He gives his speech, his voice echoing off the lockers, everyone hanging on his words. Then we huddle, we talk …

…thing left to do is watch our wide open rookie score a left handed lay up to win. "Five, four, three, two, one, buzz." In order to get where you have never been, you have to do things you would have never done. I know everyone on the team that night pressed harder then they ever have, maybe for themselves, but mostly for the rest of us. We did it for each other. We won.