Dad signed me up for a 2-week hoops camp at Whitney Young high school in the city. He wanted me to get introduced to the game and I signed up with my bestie Shea so he and Shea's dad also thought we'd have a great time together, which we totally did.
And thus began my basketball career.
Here's the thing though, we walked in to the gym and there were about 80 kids there... 76 of them boys and most between the ages of 9-12 (some even older than that). Dad brought us on the first day to get us settled in and so he told Shea and me to grab a ball and start bouncing and passing it to each other... meanwhile he sat in these stands wondering if he got me in over my head.
But all was good. After a little bit of a tough stretch (no pun intended) during calisthenics, where I had absolutely no idea what anyone was doing, we broke off into mini groups and Shea and I landed together in the Prep Group. It was there we played King of the Hill, which is basically 1-1 and the person who scores stays on and the person who doesn't goes off.
Here's the thing: I couldn't get the ball up to the rim so I was never King or Queen of the Hill. That said, I had a ton of fun and LOVED playing defense.
Here's a boy who was in the Prep Group with us and Dad called him mini-me. He was nine but really really small and skinny with a white mop, hence the name.
We broke off and did some dribbling drills, which were hilarious because Coach Taylor told us to go to the first cone and then dribble it through our legs... I looked at dad with a big smile and lip sync'd "I can't even fit the ball through my legs."
Anyway, it was a really fun two-week camp. A couple times I started to think 3 hours a day was a bit much (it was) but Shea and I made it all the way through and we both actually made a basket during our 2-week run. As in: big ball through 10-foot hoop. We were pretty proud of ourselves.
Since we were the smallest of the crew the campers and the coaches treated us like gold all camp long. And then, at the end, well, they made kind of a big deal about us. They made this tunnel that was the length of half the court and they put on some awesome music and they had us run through it while they cheered us on to the finish line.
That was the flip book version. Here's the real life version. And you can see my buddy Shea come flying through after me.
After that Coach Snyder's wife, the nicest woman on the planet who took care of us with anything we needed when we were there on our own, gave us a medal, a certificate and a really sweet orange t-shirt. And a hug, most importantly.
Here's to girl power!
And my photo editor's lasting memory from camp that will forever be embedded in his mind.
Next up: Mae has requested ice skating lessons in the fall. Here's to hockey season!
