Inside the Huddle

In 1998, I turned out for the eighth grade basketball team at Woodward Middle School on Bainbridge Island, convinced my smooth jump shot would make up for what in hindsight was clearly an inability to pass, rebound, defend or run up and down the court more than twice without breaking into a messy sweat.
The coach told me to take a hike before I’d opened my first Gatorade.
In a strange sort of way, that day came to define my high school career. I spent four years on the sidelines, literally — never tried out for basketball again — and was envious,  jealous, of the kids who got to play the game I loved.

At the time I considered basketball my “best” sport. Every day I played alone on the cracked court outside my childhood bedroom, providing play-by-play and commentary for the birds and whoever or whatever else was around and would listen. I’d play for hours, shouting in glee over game-winning jumpers, made possible by the imaginary game clock I could rewind because I was the referee, too. All I ever wanted to be was a basketball player, and when that eighth grade coach told me otherwise, I threw in the proverbial towel.

Now, when I think back to my biggest hardship over those four years, that’s it. I didn’t play basketball.

I was incredibly lucky.

There are teenagers in our community who have been through far, far more. Yet they persevere and step up to the same podium, on the same stage, the night of high school graduation. They should be commended, congratulated, because their journeys went beyond jump shots and buzzer-beaters. They overcame  illness, homelessness, neglect, depression and others.

Read about two incredible soon-to-be-graduates, Kandyce Alvear and Cathy Dang, as part of a special feature in Friday’s Bremerton Patriot and Central Kitsap Reporter.