Losing really sucks. I might not feel like I let my whole university down but I still hate the feeling. Things are different as a professional. You are getting paid to win games and you change teams every year, sometimes more often than that. So the loyalty and connectedness with the program isn’t as strong. Yet, losing is still losing and it sucks.
We lost yesterday to my old team by 5 points. Last week we won by 3 against one of the best teams in the league. How the weeks change! My whole outlook on things is determined by Sundays game. My dad can tell two words into our conversations how the game went. Last week the sun was shining, the birds were chirping and life was good. This week after the game I returned to an empty apartment, it was freezing outside, and all I can do is think about every stupid thing I did in the game. If we had won I would be thinking about how I scored 20 in the first half but instead I am so mad at myself for not scoring 20 in the second half.
My teammates are all great and my coach’s and managers are real supportive and all. But I have about had it with talks from various people within the organization. They talk about how it is okay because we played a great team and we almost beat them. They go on and on about how it is early in the season and we are just coming up from the second division so keep playing hard, the wins will come. Freaking puke me! These talks are no doubt supposed to raise our spirits but all it does is piss me off. I don’t want to hear about how it is okay to lose because it isn’t and maybe that way of thinking is the reason we are doing it.
The worst part is that I have a whole week to think about it. We play once a week. Sometimes we have “friendly” matches which are far from friendly and do little to erase the bad memories from the weekend before. Friendly games are such a joke. We usually play horrible teams and drop to their level of play. Last week we played 16 year old boys. And let me just tell you that 16 year old Greek boys don’t play like Americans of the same age…… Take a normal 14 year old Greek boy playing ball. By this time in the states, a fourteen year old kid has probably developed the fundamentals of the game and is now getting a feel for how to move right. He’s imitating Allen Iverson and Kobe Bryant. Perhaps one can argue that this is the worst thing for a developing basketball player but on the other hand, he’s learning how to move right. A lot of the boys at that age here in Greece, look clumsy and uncoordinated. Their fundamentals aren’t better and they certainly aren’t learning how to imitate anyone very well. Plus, they haven’t really realized yet that they are going through puberty, their bodies are changing, and deodorant is now a necessity. The whole gym stunk of B.O.
But back to my point. A whole week to think about a loss is no fun. I try to keep things in perspective. I here all the “its just a game”, “you need to let it go, its over with” but I’ve never been very good at that. I guess it would be easier if we weren’t losing games that we had no chance to win. If we were really a second division team and couldn’t compete that would be one thing. But we can beat these teams, I think it is just a matter of my team really believing that we can and should win. I guess that takes time but I’m really impatient. Okay, enough bitching. This is the life I choose and I love it… most of the time.
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