Love for the Game

Love for the Game 

By Trisha Horwood

I am an eighteen year old girl. I go to Brock High School, where I am a senior basketball star that everyone knows about. My daily routine consists of school, basketball practice, homework, and then bed. I have many scholarship offers all around the world to play basketball and that’s the only thing that I think about every single day, minute, and second of my life.

            Sports is in my blood, it is what I was put on this earth to do. Basketball all started for me when I was six years old. I began to play with my two older brothers just for fun and quickly learned that I had a deep passion for the game. My mother saw the love I had for basketball and said there was a coach in Mineral Wells that wanted me to play on a select team for him when I was only in the first grade. I traveled to Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Georgetown, and even as far as Oklahoma to compete in the national basketball tournaments. Although traveling was very time consuming and exhausting, I never questioned that basketball was what I wanted to do forever. I played on the select team for five years and when I got into Jr. High my mother told me that I would have to quit the select team because I was going to play for my school and that is what team I needed to focus on the most. Through my Jr. High career our team went undefeated and I was averaging fifteen points per game. I was a leader and role model to my teammates and they all looked up to me. My mother was my number one fan; she pushed me to always be better and critiqued my weaknesses that I had on the court.

            The summer before going into high school was not like any other normal summer. I came home from the gym and saw my mother talking to my father, crying. They told me and my three siblings to go sit in the living room so we could talk. My mother said, with her shaking voice, “I am sorry guys and I want to be the first ones to tell you this before the town tells all of you.”

            “What do you mean mom? What are you talking about?” I ask. “You’re scaring me.”

            “I am sick kids and I am going to start treatment.”

            “What kind of treatment and what do you mean by sick?”

            “I have stage 4 colon cancer and I have to immediately start taking chemo and radiation treatments in Houston, She says. I felt like the walls were slowly caving in on me and my family.

Running noises and teardrops filled the big, empty room. I looked to my father, who has his face tucked down into his soaking wet T-shirt.  This could not be happening, I thought to myself.

            As the summer progressed my mother got weaker and weaker. The only thing that kept me going was being able to relieve my stress on the court and knowing that from now on, I stepped on the court only for my mother and I wouldn't step off of it without leaving everything that I had.

Before my mother passed we grew closer and closer. She taught me so many important things in life that I hadn't known before. She told me to do everything with your whole heart and to never quit on anything in life because quitters will never succeed. When she past in mid-June I applied her words to what I knew how to do best: basketball.

I started as a freshman on the Varsity team for Brock and soon realized how much time I needed to put into practicing to get where I wanted to be as a senior and beyond. Practice was three hours long every single day, but I stayed two hours after for extra practice. Each year of high school I improved but I never believed that I was good enough, so I kept pushing myself to the limit. It wasn't until my junior year that I finally realized how good I had become. That was the year I carried my team to the State Championship game. We lost by only two points in over-time and I will never forget the sick feeling that I had in my stomach and how much I wanted to just go back in time to fix all the mistakes I had that game. My coach had to come and get me out of the locker room after the game. We had a deep conversation that I will never forget.

“Brittany” he said. “I am beyond blessed to be able to coach an athlete with heart like yours and I have no doubt in my mind that you are going to win the state championship for us next year, you’re senior year.”

“But I didn't this year because I played terrible for you coach…”

“Hush it. You had the best game of your life and you will have even better games next season.” He said, almost shouting at me.

My senior season quickly rolled around and I was beyond ecstatic to finally begin the season of my dream career. On the very first day of practice I was pushing myself to the max. My pony tail was completely drenched with sweat and I could barely feel my body because it was aching from being so tired. Coach calls for the drill and it is my favorite one because you get to keep playing as long as you are scoring or rebounding. I grab the rebound and dribble out quickly to try to beat the defenders down the court. I see a girl that is on my team calling for the ball, so I do a rapid jump stop. I hear a huge POP (that to this day still haunts me) and then feel my knee give out. I fall to the ground in excruciating pain. I cry out to my coach to help me up but he stands there, shocked. As my coach stares at me, I lay on the ground and feel the whole entire world of basketball slowly creep out of my life. I see the torn ligament in my knee and the doctors telling me that I am officially done for the season. I see college basketball and the WMBA become out of reach. I see my mother looking down on me from heaven and placing her hand on me to say, “Sweetie it is all going to be okay. There are many things out there other than basketball for you to do. I love and I will always be here with you in spirit.” At that moment I know that I am going to have to live the rest of my life without the one thing that had, until now, been my entire life.