Wouldn’t it be surprising to get cut from a team during senior year?  Everybody is ready to go out for the schools basketball team, who is normally very good at basketball, and get cut.  Imagine kids saying, “I can’t believe he got cut.”  It would be a little humiliating, right?    This would probably be no big deal for anyone else.  For one kid on my dad’s team, it was the exact opposite because he was the first senior ever in his school’s history to get cut from the varsity basketball team. 

My dad helped to start up this league at our local YMCA called KBA, which stands for Kingdom Basketball Association.  He has won the championship the past four years in a row and was going for his fifth.  As can be imagined, there was a large amount of kids wanting to play for him, so many, in fact, that he had to have two teams.  When he finally had the two teams, they started practicing every Friday after school for an hour or so.  The senior showed up to every practice and he had plenty of enthusiasm about it.

Once the season finally started, the team looked exceptionally good in the first few games.  They started off 1-0, 2-0, 3-0.  They could not be beat.  “As long as they did what I told them to do,” my dad said.  The senior on the team was the one who handled the ball most of the time.  He loved to drive in the paint then dish it to one of his teammates on the outside waiting to drain the shot.  He was good at driving; he always had the defense collapsing on him.  Sometimes he would take it up himself and take a hard foul.  As the season continued on, they found themselves in a perfect position for the tournament. 

They only had one loss but still had a bye for the first round of the tournament and played a cupcake team in the second round.  It was double elimination, meaning they had to lose twice in order to be knocked out of the tournament all together.  They easily won in the first two rounds with a total team effort.  In the semi-finals they jumped out to an early lead.  They were too comfortable though and began to play exceedingly lazy defense and were turning the ball over too much on offense.  The opposing team slowly started to fight their way back into the game.  It all came down to the last two possessions.  My dad devised a play that he knew would work if they executed it the way it was supposed to be done.  They did not.  They put up a bad shot, up by one, and the other team grabbed the rebound.  With five seconds left on the clock, the opposing team raced down to the other end and put up a three pointer.  Swish, nothing but net as time expired and my dad’s team lost the game.  They were not out yet though because it was a double elimination tournament.  They had to play one more game to get to the championship.  They won that game with ease and made it to the championship.

This was it, the game everybody had been waiting for.  They made it to the championship game.  The stench of hot and sweaty boys filled the air.  The crowd could see the exhaustion in everybody’s face.  The game started, and just like that the opponent was out to a quick lead.  But my dad’s team would not back down from them.  They clawed their was back into it, one kid hitting some really deep threes to put us right back into the game.  It was back and forth all game, and everyone knew it would come down to the last second.  My dad called timeout with ten seconds left to set up a play.  The anticipation in the crowd was building just waiting to see how everything would play out.  At the end of the timeout, they had to take the ball out from the sidelines.  We passed the ball in to our post player with eight seconds left.  Our big man down low dribbled right and then spun left, puts up a contested shot and missed.  Everyone thought the game was over down by one, but then out of no where the senior came and tipped the ball in as time expired.  His was face full of excitement and disbelief that he just made the shot.  Everyone’s jaws drop in disbelief.  As I watched it all happen, I thought to myself, ‘Did that just happen?’   The kid cut from the varsity basketball team made the game winning shot in the championship game.  The team rushed off the bench and jumped on him to celebrate.  After the game, talking to my dad, he said, “I set them up for success and that shot was the last resort.”