All Sport Academy - How Good Do You Want To Be Today?

Last weekend I saw two last second shots during basketball games, which I find to be one of the most exciting things in all of sports. Here they are:

1). The situation was, with a few seconds on the clock, his team down by one point and two free throws, this kid sinks the second of the two to tie the game. With nearly no time left the other team throws the ball in (deep), a player grabs the ball, pivots and throws up a shot that falls in to win.

2). Another tie game, around 15 seconds left, player takes the in bounds pass and dribbles up the court, holds the ball for the last shot, he drives to the corner and launches a shot just before the buzzer. As the shot goes up, you see the official running towards half court blowing his whistle. He said the kid was fouled and gets two free throws, with no time on the clock. They clear the floor and put this kid on the line for his two free throws. He calmly sinks the first one, the near capacity crowd goes crazy and his teammates mob him on the floor.

Both were equally exciting, both were equally important to the players and fans, but as similar as they sound, they couldn’t have been farther apart in about a million ways… The first game was the ending of the University of Minnesota vs. Indiana game in the Big Ten tournament last weekend. I was watching TV and my wife called me in to see the ending, since I’m from Minnesota she knew I’d like to see it. Obviously it was a big college game in front of a television audience and a few thousand fans and the win sent Minnesota to the semi-final game of the tournament. The second game was the championship game of the St. Barts Rec basketball league in East Brunswick. The league is ages 3rd grade thru 8th grade, the player involved I believe is in 4th grade. It was nothing less than amazing to see this kid check the clock, dribble around, then head to the corner for his last-second shot. Anyone that’s ever played any level of basketball knows that we all do the 5-4-3-2-1 shoot drill with our friends a million times over our “careers” and I could see him doing it in his head. What was really amazing about it though was seeing him step up to the line, block out the crowd (I’d say there were 100+ people in the gym, all screaming) and calmly sink that first free throw. It was sports in it’s purest form…

After that game came the championship game we came to see, the girls 3rd - 8th grade championship. I love going to this particular gym, it’s small, but cozy and it’s named after my wife. OK, no, it’s not named after my wife, but the gym and my wife have the same name and I like that. Anyway, the girls warm up and they call both teams to the center of the floor, they all take a knee and the say a prayer (it’s a Catholic school, it’s what they do!), then they start the game. What I love about this league is they play six minute quarters and regardless of what’s happening on the floor they switch players after three minutes. I’ve watched two games there now and in both games there were fast breaks that were stopped because of the three-minute horn. The game was close, as all good championship games should be, but in the end our buddy Katie’s team came out on top. It was a wonderful afternoon away from the gym and there was some really great basketball from a bunch of young kids played. The winners of the tournament got a really cool sweatshirt that they’ll be able to wear proudly to school or anywhere else. If I’m not mistaken, both teams climbed into cars and went out for pizza together. You can’t beat that deal…