Personal Narrative: Women's Basketball

I started basketball at the tender age of four years old. At that time, it was mostly running around a basketball court having fun, and making the parents in the crowd smile. I would not have thought at that age that basketball would mean so much. As I got older I wanted to be like my dad, and my sister, on top of being in Knoxville, Tennessee where women’s basketball, and football is almost all people care about. On rival game days when we would play the Florida Gators, UT fans would have actual alligators they killed on top of their cars. The first time I witnessed this was riding in the car on the highway, I remember distinctly getting scared and asking my dad “what is that huge this on their car”, I could not believe my eyes. I remember meeting Pat Summit at UT and it seemed like basketball was the normal process of things in my family and my

Playing on a basketball court with an audience showed me that people are always watching. It is your decision whether to put on a show or not, but know your audience is waiting. People will observe you on your good days and bad days. Do not let this surprise you. Even playing basketball when I did not score people would watch, they would judge, and they choose whether to encourage, discourage or do neither. For example, once in fourth grade a girl in my class who was not a friend of mine came up to me and said “good game last night”. Of course I said thank you preceded on, but there is no guarantee she meant this in a good or bad way. I know it is great to think that no one is watching, and that what you do does not effect people, but I could not think of anything further from the truth. As people we try to ignore this because it means less responsibility and also less self consciousness. Someone is always watching whether you like it or not. And because someone is always watching, it is up to you to be yourself and completely own up to your