Year after year, month after month, week after week, day after day, we age. Every second we are getting older and older and as this happens, we gain more and more of something. What do you think we gain? Looking at my young life so far, I think I have an idea. We are given more responsibility every time we age. Getting older is not a bad thing at all. Having more responsibility can be good, but that is if you are ready for it. Responsibility can be given to you when you are too young or when you just don’t know what to do with it. This all can connect to sports. In mostly every sport in our world, someone on the team or a person has responsibility. Some people have more than others too. Though, if you are the oldest, sometimes you should not always receive all of the responsibility. Responsibility should be given to a person who truly wants it. One time, I got all of the responsibility because I was the oldest on my team, and this completely failed on me. This time was on, December 3rd, 2014.

Waking up for my game that day, I was tired, nervous, and scared. Emotions couldn’t describe how I was feeling today. Today was the big day, the day where my team and I were in the championships. But this wasn’t just any championship game, we were up against the number 1 team in San Diego, The Slayers. “Get ready mom, I want to get there early!” I said yelling to my mom. Grabbing my ball out of the nice, comfy hotel bed, I was really trying hard to picture myself winning the championship, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t get through the fact that we were going up against The Slayers, The Slayers I kept repeating over and over again. Not feeling confident in myself, I put my Beats on and tried to focus on the game, and only the game.

Arriving at the game, I could already see The Slayers warming up and ready to play the game. Looking over at my team, I saw only three people were here. Trying to calm myself down and make sure I was ready, I said to myself, “You’re fine, you go this, you’re the best!” But not any of these words were helping me out at the time. As soon as my coach entered the court, we started warming up. Five minutes into warm ups he pulled me over and started talking to me. As scared as I was, my coach told me that I would be the leader today. It was my job to make my team win. My responsibility. Taking all of the responsibility was crazy to think about for me. I couldn’t imagine that I would have the responsibility. Having only two minutes left in warm-ups, I called my team over and tried to talk to them. Taking the responsibility meant I was going to be the leader of my team. This was definitely not the case in the huddle. I was exact opposite of a leader. Nervously I said, “O-o-okkk guys we got this.” Everyone on my team must have thought I was wracked because that’s the only thing I said in those two minutes. After I said that sentence it was silent for about a full minute.

As the whistle blew, I was hoping that this wouldn’t go as bad as I thought it would go. Remembering that I had all of the responsibility was tough for me to handle. But as soon as I was thinking about that, all of a sudden the ball landed in my hands. Bringing the ball up the court for the first time, I choked. I didn’t know what to do. Freaking out, I threw the ball away and The Slayers got two easy point on us right away. “Settle down,” my coach said. Him saying that did not help me at all. Knowing that I was the leader, I tried to make wild shots, dribble to much, make cool passes, and more. I was only making a fool out of myself for a complete 40 minutes of basketball. I knew I shouldn’t have been given the responsibility but I couldn’t speak up and tell my coach that. I didn’t have any guts to do that. Looking at our defeat, I knew what I had to do to make me be an actual  leader. Going to the gym everyday and always going 100 percent.

Seeing my coach for the first time after the game, I said to him, “I’m sorry coach.”
     

My coach said back to me, “It’s my fault, I should have known not to give an 11 year old boy that much pressure.” With that in mind, I walked out of the gym, ready to work harder and harder the next game I had.