Holiday Basketball Invitational

For the last few days Russ and I have been driving to and from Cary to watch Carter’s team play in a basketball tournament. Since we have to pay $8 each to get into every game we think of this tournament as a big revenue generator for the host school. It started the day after Christmas with no break to get away for post Christmas family time, but his was the commitment we took on when Carter made Varsity.

The team is small in number and short on players with lots of years of experience, but long on heart and sticktoittiveness. The coaches are tough, but the lessons learned from just being part of this group are invaluable.

Earlier in the season I was sitting in the stands with my friend David Beischer who is a parent of a boy who plays basketball as well as a basketball playing alum of DA. While watching the girls in a very tough match against a team with a much deeper bench of seasoned players on their way to D-1 basketball scholarships he told me about an old DA Physics professor whose name I can’t remember, who created some theorem that said, once a girls team was down eleven points there was no way they were coming back to win a game.

During that particular game the girls were down by 14 points, came back to being one up and in the final seconds let their defense down and lost the game. It was a miracle that they came back by that much in the first place, but heart breaking. To me the good news was that they had proven the 30-year theorem could be broken.

The Holiday Invitational started out with DA girls winning their first match up handily. The second game was much tougher and they could not pull out the win, but during that game one of the captains of the team, junior Cha’Mia Rothwell made her 1,000^th point as a DA varsity player. The amazing thing about this is basketball is not even her best sport, you should see her run track.

Today was the final game against a tough team from Fayetteville. If you have never been to Fayetteville you have no idea how tough it is. The DA girls were in a shoot out to see which team would take 3^rd in the tournament.

The game started badly and quickly went sideways for our girls. In the third quarter they were down by 21 points. A fellow parent, an ex-professional football player, who I sat with during the whole tournament muttered, “Just get to down 14 and we will be happy.” It seemed like a big ask to me, but we all prayed.

The forth quarter started and all I could think of was whatshisname Physics Professor’s Theorem – down almost double his theory there was no way. But the little team with lots of heart did not know they could not win this game. Slowly they started chipping away at Fayetteville’s lead. Suddenly three’s were being hit and free throws were all being made. With seconds left, Cha’Mia, better known as Cham on the court got us tied up and them closed it down by making a free throw in the very last second. The crowd went wild. My heart was beating so hard it felt as if I had just run a marathon. Fittingly after the game was the planned cake celebration of Cham reaching her 1,000^th point in the previous game.

It was heart breaking for the Fayetteville girls who were sure this was their game when they were up by 21. That old teacher might have been a great Physics Prof, but he did not know this team of girls. Congratulations to the little team with the big heart, their great coaches Krista and Robert and all the friends and family members who came out to support them at each and every game. Watching you come together as a team was worth more than double every dollar and hour spent.