Due to some not-so-recent circumstances, I have found that basketball is not the sport that I first fell in love with. Now, this is not another situation where the coaches ruin the sport for the athlete; it would be quite the opposite. The reason why I fell out of love with basketball is due to the constant pain I experience throughout my knees as I run, jump, and compete in athletics.
My injury is called Patellar Tendonitis, and this started freshman year. With most injuries, people will go to a doctor and get help, as I did. They told me to rest and strengthen the area, so after a couple of months of doing what I was told the pain still occurred. “Fast forward one and a half years to the end of my sophomore basketball season. The pain hadn’t left my knees it had gotten worse over time. So I began thinking to myself that this may be the end of my dream of playing collegiate basketball. So like the popular saying goes ‘When one door closes, another opens.’”
At this point, I was enjoying my time off of athletics, being able to go home after school and spend time with my friends and family. Then by the grace of my ultimate boredom, I stumbled upon a YouTube video, of a group of guys buying a set of golf clubs at a thrift store and then going out and playing. When I saw this I thought of some of my friends who play once in a blue moon. “So the next time I was out I decided to go by Goodwill, I went in and it seemed like the stars aligned. There it was, a golf bag with everything that I needed.”
Over the summer I fell in love with the game of golf. I liked it so much that I decided that I wanted to play for the high school team. I went into tryouts not expecting much. I honestly thought that I wasn’t good enough to play, since I was still pretty new to the game. There was a total of fifteen players who tried out, only the top six would get to play in the first match of the year. “In three days of golf, it came down to one stroke, and the doors kept unlocking as I finished in 6th place. I was relieved and stressed at the same time, as many people in my situation would be – meaning that I was going to have to play a real match that I felt ill-prepared for. The course was Kokopelli Golf Club, of Marion, Illinois. Many people refer to it as one of the hardest courses in the area, but I didn’t care what people were saying about it. I was just going to go out and do what I love.
After the six-hour match, I ended up with an official score of 89. For those who don’t play golf, this is a great score for a beginner-level golfer; I was very proud of myself and felt accomplished once again. The rest of my season went on, I played every match throughout the season, and I broke my personal best of 89 a total of three more times. My very last match of the season wasn’t the Cinderella ending that you might expect, but it was a memorable one. It was a dark and rainy morning, we played at Greenview Golf Club in Centralia. The day was already off to an unpleasant start. Our tee time had been delayed for more than an hour. We were waiting for the rain to ease up, and as soon as it did we got ready and teed off, I started pretty well but it didn’t last for long.
Around hole 9 was when I realized that I had no chance of winning, so I told myself that I was just going to play for fun, that’s when disaster struck. I teed off on hole 10, It was a monster slice into a neighborhood, and within moments you heard glass shatter. I felt terrible. I had probably just broken something very expensive and hard to replace. I tried to figure out what I had shattered without making it noticeable. ( I never found out, but if I had to guess I think it was probably a window on a house ). Overall I had an amazing experience and look forward to doing it again my Senior year.
