Game of the Year

I coach the Rita Elementary School sixth grade basketball team. We play other local elementary schools and I just want to say we are awesome. We call ourselves the sharks and we have about three pairs of shoes between the 10 of us – and that’s counting me.

We don’t run the fastest, we don’t shoot the straightest and heaven knows we don’t have the tightest ship on floor, but last weekend, for a game we were the best team in the world.

We went into the game 1-3 with our only victory coming from a team that was depleted because of some nasty plight with the flu. Before that one win we had been humiliated by two other teams and forfeited a third game because we couldn’t get enough players to the game in time. Our team psyche was a little down and as we watched Uliga Elementary School go through their warm-ups with the laser precision of the Phoenix Suns a ripple of fear slinked its way down our collective spines. Look at their three-pointers – they are strong enough to shoot them. Look at their lay-ins – they actually make them. Look at their passing – people catch the ball.

Some of the kids who were not actually playing in the game but who had come to be our cheerleaders came up to me with their heads hanging low.

“We are going to lose, Mr. Tim,” Lani said. “They are very good.”

“We will not lose, Lani,” I said and suppressed a gulp of fear.

In the world of Marshall Islands Elementary coaching, this game was a career-making game. This was the kind of game that people would praise or ridicule the coach for years to come. It was Uliga up against Rita. A grudge match of two neighborhoods barely a five-minute walk away from each other. Everyone knows that you play hard against other teams but you play with your teeth bared and claws out when it is against your neighbor, your rival.

I led my kids through our scrambled warm-up. We tried to emulate Uliga’s precision but the Sharks, well the Sharks are more concerned with watching Laijab trying a behind-the-back-into-the-net lay-in (zero chance of success) or watching Johnson try and talk to one of the girls from Uliga (a pretty much sure thing).

Anyway, the point is that I was trying to get them to make lay-ins and they were only concerned with cracking each other up.

At least they were not nervous.

In the few minutes after tip-off I saw our team make a basket for Uliga after confusing which way they were to go after tip-off, run into a ref and go down by 15 points. Things were not going well…

So I called a time-out. I had seen coaches on TV do this from time to time and I figured that at this point that would be the best thing to do. We huddled in close and I kept my message short and to the point. Stop shooting three-pointers, you will never make them, stop trying to do behind the back passes, Steve Nash you are not and please, please, please do not sit down on the court to rest when the other team is shooting free throws!

I don’t know what happened but soon enough after that the RES Sharks had taken a two-point lead after getting to the line and making good passes. I found myself jumping up and down on the sidelines and barking at refs. On the final possession with seconds ticking down to zero, Laijab grabbed the most amazing rebound I have ever seen this side of the Pacific and the buzzer sounded.

The kids ran in, I was hugged and high-fived and I found myself huffing and puffing as much as my kids.

I don’t want to brag or anything, but we pretty much rock out here in the Marshall Islands.

Go Sharks!