Friendly Competition

Last night, at the basketball summer leauge games, my team (Syracuse JV2) was schedualed to play against Sterling. Sterling (Nebraska) is where I went to school for K-3rd grade. As we were warming up for that game, I was searching the other team for people I knew. Much to my dismay, I knew almost all of them. Coach had chosen me to do the jump ball (mainly because I was the tallest on the team). I ran off of that bench almost a little cocky, as I walked into the middle circle on the court, I looked up and there, jumping for Sterling, was one of my friends, Becky. I wanted to hug her, I hadn't seen her in over 5 years, but we settled for a hand shake and a subtle good luck. The ref tossed the ball and naturally both of us jumped up for it and collided. I won the jump, I had tipped it back to the point gaurd to my left. Becky and I are about the same size, so we ended up gaurding each other throughout the entire game. I would knock her on the floor, and I would help her up. But, more often than not, I found myself the one being knocked on the floor multiple times. As one of my former teammates, Shelby, always said, "Dude! You ate floor!". I did eat floor, all. game. long. A couple of minutes before half time, there was a foul called on my team, and Sterling was shooting free throws. Becky was subbed out, and another girl was put in for her. This girl lined up next to me for the free throws, and then it hit me. This girl standing next to me used to be my best friend. Her name was Erika, and we rode the same bus when I went to Sterling. As I am standing there about to knock her to the floor so I could get the rebound, I asking myself many questions. Does she recognize me? Will she forgive me for knocking her out in like 3 seconds? Will she talk to me? Does she even remember that we used to be best friends? As all of these questions were going through my mind, I spaced out and completely forgot my job, to get the rebound. Erika knocked me on the floor, and she got the rebound and scored. I was shocked, coach made me sit the bench the rest of the half. We lost that game, 10-12. After the game, our teams lined up to give high fives. I went through the line like normal, but after that I practically tackled my friends with hugs. I didn't care how sweaty and gross I was, I hadn't seen some of these girls since the last day of my 3rd grade year. It is times like this that really make me appreciate the time I do have with my friends. I really don't want this to happen to my friends in Ogallala, me not seeing them for 7-8 years. I want to try and keep in close contact with these people, all of them. They know how much they mean  to me.