room for improvement: no mvp.

I never was much of a basketball player. That didn't stop me from playing for five years or even from being a starting player. When you are 5'10", you do not have to be very good. You just have to be able to stick your spindly little arms straight into the air. I was the shortest center in the league, but I was still the tallest thing we had.

I struggled with free throws, along with pretty much every other aspect of the game, except dribbling. I did not struggle at dribbling, I avoided it completely. Luckily, everybody on my ball team pretty much sucked at everything, so I did not stand out. The fact that I had about a 20% average from the foul line put me about par with the rest of the team.

During my sophomore year of high school, we played an exhibition game with some tiny mountain high school. They sucked, too. I know because we managed to keep up with them for the entirety of the game. We were one point down with only a few seconds to go when someone on my team fired a last minute shot that bounced off the rim. I was in the perfect position to catch it, right by the goal, because if nothing else, I at least knew where to stand while I stuck my spindly little arms straight into the air. I caught the rebound, I was hacked viciously from all sides, the clock ran out, a foul was called. The other team had more than seven team fouls, so I would shoot a one-and-one, one point down, no time left.

A quick basketball lesson: shooting a one-and-one meant that if I missed the first one, I got no more shots and the game was over. If I made the first shot, I got another one which I could also make or miss. So I had a chance to:
A.) Singlehandedly win the game and the glory of my high school.
B.) Tie the game and take it into overtime, giving us another five minutes to beat the tiny mountain team that also sucked.
C.) Blow it all completely.

What? You picked answer C? *Dingdingdingding*, you are right!

I cried. My coach cried. My teammates cried, because we were high school girls who hadn't won a game all last season. You see those game-winning shots and you think it must be nice to feel that kind of rush. You never think about those poor saps who blew it.

There was never a conscious effort on my part to improve my free throw percentage. I do not remember ever thinking to myself that I needed to at least not suck at something. All I know is that at the end of year banquet, I was receiving a Most Improved plaque because I ended the season with a free throw percentage of about 80%. That's some improvement, and I was kinda proud at my new skill. Of course, I probably would have just rather made those two shots that would have won the game. Give me one game's MVP over an entire season's Most Improved any day.