In Students of the Game, young athletes take you behind the scenes with local high school squads. Today, GW Graham students Kennedy Mammel (right) and Gracyn Anderson (left) detail the challenges of being a b-ball newbie.
What is it like to be the rookies on the team you ask?
Well, this season certainly was a lot harder that we ever anticipated, but not in the way that you would think.
We were prepared to work harder in practice, prepared to learn new plays and prepared for different coaching styles.
Those things are just what it takes to be an adaptable athlete.
The steepest learning curve was learning how to manage our time and school-work.
Increased practice time and higher academic expectations happened simultaneously.
We underestimated how long homework would take us and certainly underestimated how tired we’d be, both physically and mentally, from trying to balance books and basketball.
There were times that it seemed that it would never come together and it was in those moments that we’d think to ourselves ‘Why are we even here?’
But then we’d receive an encouraging, ‘I believe in you kid’ from a coach or a high-five from teammate who had traveled this road just a year before we did.
That helped a lot.
It felt like we clawed our way through to the end of this season through blood, sweat and a lot of tears.
But we made it!
We also struggled adjusting to a much faster game at a more competitive level, and trying to figure out how we were going to keep up.
We watched veteran teammates shoot and drain three point shots and not miss lay-ups and expected that we should be able to do the same.
It’s very frustrating when you can see what you want to do and know what needs to happen but you still aren’t able to do it.
I (Gracyn) was frustrated on several occasions when I wanted to execute a play properly, take the shot perfectly and so forth and I could not make it work.
I didn’t know what to do with that.
But I learned I was way harder on myself than my coaches were. Learning to quell the internal battle in my mind of how the game ‘should’ look was a giant hurdle for me.
And oh my word, the injuries and battling back from a sprained ankle. I (Kennedy) sprained my ankle mid-season.
As a rookie you don’t get the playing time the more experienced players get, and when that playing time is even further reduced because of injury and rehab, that is devastating.
But we have a pretty amazing athletic department at G.W. Graham.
With the support of all of my coaches and teammates I iced and Advil-ed and iced that ankle some more.
I elevated, I taped, I rehabbed and I was able to return to action in about four weeks.
So, is being a rookie for the faint of heart?
No.
Will you be physically exhausted and on play-information overload?
Yes.
Is there a tonne more learning to do?
Yes.
Will there be tears?
Yes.
Can finding your place on the team be hard?
Yes.
Was it all worth it?
Your darn right it was!