Alright, so I headed down to the court for the Arecibo team practice today. The sun was beating down, you know, typical island weather. The court itself, well, let’s just say it’s seen better days. Cracks here and there, one hoop looked a bit lopsided. But hey, it’s what we got, and we make it work.
Warm-ups and Drills
Coach Ramirez, bless his heart, he’s old school. First thing, laps. Then more laps. My legs were screaming pretty early on. Then came the stretching, felt like my muscles were gonna snap. After we were all good and sweaty, we got into some basic drills. Passing drills, mostly. Chest passes, bounce passes. Some of the younger guys, they try to get all fancy, no-look stuff. Coach just shakes his head. “Fundamentals, boys, fundamentals!” he’d yell. We spent a good chunk of time on free throws too. Clank, clank, swish, clank. You get the picture. It’s a grind, but that’s basketball for you.
Then we moved on to some defensive slides. Ugh. Nobody likes defensive slides. Felt like my shoes were sticking to the hot asphalt. But you gotta do it. Coach kept saying, “Offense sells tickets, defense wins championships!” I think I’ve heard that a million times in my life. We did a bit of 2-on-2, then 3-on-3. It was messy. Passes going wild, folks tripping over their own feet. But there were moments, you know? A good pick, a nice shot. That’s what keeps you coming back.
A Little Scrimmage Action
We finished off with a short scrimmage, full court. It was chaos, mostly. Fun chaos, though. Everyone’s tired by then, so a lot of mistakes happen. But the spirit was good. Lots of shouting, a bit of friendly trash talk. That’s the part I like, seeing everyone just playing, forgetting about the drills for a bit.
This whole setup, it reminds me of something. It wasn’t always like this, you know, having a team, even a rough-around-the-edges one like ours here in Arecibo.
Took Me Back Awhile
I remember years ago, I was working this dead-end job. Long hours, not much pay, you know the drill. My boss, he was one of those guys who thought yelling louder made him righter. Just a real piece of work. Anyway, there was this little community center near where I lived back then. They had a basketball hoop, just one, and the backboard was mostly plywood. The net was all torn up.
A few of us from the neighborhood, we started just shooting around after work. Just to blow off steam, mostly. None of us were any good, really. We were terrible. But we kept showing up. Then one day, this older fella, Mr. Henderson, he used to play college ball way back when, he saw us. He started giving us pointers. Just little things. How to hold the ball, how to set a screen. Simple stuff.
Slowly, we got a bit better. We even scraped together enough guys to call ourselves a team. We called ourselves the “Scrappers” because, well, that’s what we did. We’d play against other pick-up teams from nearby towns. We lost a lot. I mean, a LOT. Our “jerseys” were just old t-shirts we tried to dye the same color. It was a disaster, mostly.
But the thing was, that little team, that beat-up court, it became something important. It was a place where we weren’t just our lousy jobs or our problems. We were teammates. We relied on each other, even if it was just to not mess up a layup too badly. That boss of mine? He eventually fired me. Said I wasn’t “focused enough.” I was pretty down for a while. But then I remembered Mr. Henderson, and the Scrappers. We never won much, but we showed up. We tried. We built something out of nothing.
So when I see Coach Ramirez out here, with these kids, on this court, I get it. It’s not about becoming NBA stars. It’s about showing up. It’s about finding that little bit of fight, that community. It’s funny how a simple game can teach you so much more than just how to shoot a ball, isn’t it? That old job is long gone, found something much better eventually. But I never forgot what playing on that rundown court with the Scrappers taught me. You just gotta keep playing, no matter what.
Anyway, practice ended. We were all beat. Coach gave us a quick talk, mostly about showing up next time with a better attitude for defense. Standard stuff. Another day, another practice in the books for the Arecibo team.
