Got shoes, got moves

cultural differences, exhibit a, originally uploaded by lynnith.

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent the past few days in New Plymouth playing for team Wellington in the first of three national Women’s Basketball Championship tournaments.  We ended up in seventh place (out of ten), which wasn’t a bad result considering we’d only put the team together a week before.  It took us a few games to find our feet and we lost our first three before winning the final two.  I came away from the tournament fairly pleased; five games in three days was brutal for someone as old and lazy as myself, but I pushed through and ended up having a great final game, nabbing 12 points and a few blocks.

Not many of you knew me when I was last a competitive basketball player.  I stopped playing in 2001 at age 17 after years of serious training, games, tournaments, summer camps, fall ball, ice buckets, and creaky knees.  By the end of it I was burned out, just another okay player from a string of underachieving teams.  I never really looked back.  Even at the UW, where a basketball band spot was pretty coveted, I didn’t bother to audition.

So you can imagine how strange and wonderful it is, ten years on, to be playing at a national level.  I’m not sure how long this will last – I am not the player I used to be – but it is certainly fun to get a second chance at all this.  Even if I do have to deal with an annoyingly over-sized key and things like the above photo, which I can only assume is an elaborate So D-Vine reference!