Basketball 21 Mar 2010 06:52 pm
The Power of Basketball
To me, basketball is everything. It is a collection of excitement, intensity, love, hate, and competitiveness. It brings out the best in individuals and the unity in a group of people. It serves as a representation of life as it is. It shows people’s true character and strength as they are placed in different situations. It offers us these different situations, placing us in winning environments, losing atmospheres, and painful experiences, be it due to injury, loss, or underachievement. Basketball is everything.
It cannot be overstated how similar basketball is to the real world and the lives people live off the court. If one wants to become a better basketball player, they have to work at it. They have to put in the hours, the sweat, and the suffering that goes with the rewarding success and feeling of fulfillment. To me, this is everything. Putting in hard work to become better at something is the foundation of life. Whether it is working out in the weight room to become stronger, working on passing to become a better passer, or working on lateral quickness to become a better defender, the idea is the same. Working on the jump-shot is the same as practicing playing the piano or writing an essay. Basketball is applicable to so many other activities because the goal of playing basketball is the same as the goal of doing anything else. That goal is to become better to experience that feeling of fulfillment and achievement after the work has been put in.
Basketball is so valuable to me because it shows exactly how tough I am, how effectively I cope with new situations, if I can show both skill and intelligence, and if I can pull through when it matters most to prevail. It shows more to me than if I can just hit a pull-up jumper or drive to the basket. The game reveals who you really are. It shows what kind of person you are. Are you a winner? Are you tough, mentally and physically? Are you reluctant to engage your peers or do you embrace sharing your success with others? Being tough in the low post is the same as being tough when dealing with financial problems and trying to support a family. Being unselfish by passing to an open teammate is the same as helping out a person in need or complimenting someone else when they need words of encouragement. All of these questions are answered on the basketball court. Because they are, basketball is more than a game. It is more than a group of people running up and down a court together. It is life.
The great thing about basketball that, no matter what level you are playing on, these questions are answered and the value is the same. There is absolutely no difference between a pickup game at the local YMCA and an NCAA tournament game between Kentucky and Ohio State. There is no difference between a high school game and an NBA game. The bottom line is that one individual is trying to prevail over the other, while one team is trying to prevail over the other. Even if only Joe Joe is trying to score over Bob Bob at the YMCA, that competition is exactly the same as the competition that John Wall faces while trying to score over Evan Turner. The names do not matter. It is the lifelike struggle that means something. Be it Joe versus Bob or James versus Bryant, one player is simply trying to lead his team to victory. The power of basketball is universal. It is valuable for all who play it. This is the power of the game.