My treasured photo

 

You don’t take a photograph, you make it. This is one of many photographs I have with my high school basketball team after winning a game or a tournament. So, why is a picture in which I am barely recognizable fundamental to the memories I have about playing basketball? In this essay, I will discuss why this picture has more meaning than it seems.

This picture was taken on April 2016, minutes after we won the “classic” high school basketball game between my high school, San Felipe Neri (SFN), and Salesianos (STAR). Both are very prestigious schools which are known to have a long-standing rivalry. This game was part of a charity event organized by the student’s council of both high schools, so it was not actually an important game. Just a friendly match. The event was held at STAR’s campus. As you can tell from the picture, many people attended the game. The coliseum was crowded. The people in the photo are just my basketball team and me, my coach, and some students from my high school that had been cheering for us during the game.

Prior to this game, I had not been playing very well and as result I was benched. My coach is known to be unreasonable and very strict when it comes to guiding players. After all he is known as “el loco Noboa”. After four months of barely playing and being forced to stay after practice to keep training, this game was the first time that I was a starter once again. This was my chance to show my coach that I was not going to make stupid turnovers or take unnecessarily hard shots or lay ups. Unfortunately, at the start of the game I was feeling very nervous because of the huge crowd that attended that game, so I made the same stupid mistakes and got benched once again within the first five minutes of the first quarter. The game was very close, and after not being able to cut the other’s team 10-point lead for the past 2 quarters, I got another opportunity to prove myself. I reentered the game midway through the third quarter, and I knew that I was not back in the game because I needed to score 20 points, but rather because we needed to slow down the other team. This proved to be no easy task, but finally, with 30 seconds left in the game we were only one point down. It was the other’s team possession, so we needed to steel the ball. The other team just had to dribble the clock out to win the game, so the people that were cheering for them started to celebrate prematurely. The other team got cocky and tried to score one last basket. They attempted a very fancy but risky pass. A bounce pass that was supposed to sneak through two defenders. Had it worked, it would have been the nail in our coffin. I can’t exactly remember how the play went, but I remember that with the corner of my eye I was looking for possible screens when I saw an orange thing approaching rapidly. Before I could process what was happening, my body was already diving for the ball. Then, when I somehow got the ball in my hands, I saw that my friend Danny had already started running towards the other team’s basket. I somehow twisted my body to pass him the ball. Immediately after the ball left my hand and I saw Danny catching it, my face hit the ground hard. I think I even knocked myself out because the next thing I remember is hearing a lot of people yelling and my teammates frantically trying to hug me.

After winning the game and having a tiny celebration on the court, we went straight to the dressing rooms to change clothes because the organizers of the game needed the court to conclude the event. Then, to my surprise, when we came out, a multitude of people was waiting to congratulate us. Even my high school crush congratulated me. Unfortunately, I could not hear what she said because not only were the students from my high school celebrating very loudly, but also the other students were mocking us for celebrating in such fashion. Surprisingly, her talking to me was not even the highlight of that night. The thing I treasure the most from that night is what my coach told me right before we took that picture. He said, “See, you are a very capable player, and this is the result of all the work you have been doing.” To this day I remember how pleasantly surprised and happy I was with this gesture.