Even as I was typing the comment in the last post about Matthew’s free-throw shooting I was thinking “you know, that’s probably not fair, overall, he’s going to make a higher percentage than Christopher”. But, that’s the way it went down at Tuesday’s practice, so, that’s the way it was recorded.
So, today at practice, the other coach says let’s divide the team in two, each kid takes 10 shots. Matthew this time is the lead in my group, making seven (Cpher had 4). The same good guard (Brook) has the lead in the other group, again with 7.
We decide to have a shoot-off; the top shooter in each group represents the 5 players….whomever loses has to do suicides with the rest of his group. The team lines up on each side of the ‘box'….the shots commence.
Matthew steps up. Swish,swish, swish, swish….miss. 4 of 5. The other 9 kids (especially the ones not in Matthew’s group) are going “Whoa!”. Brook’s turn. During this interlude the other coach turns to me and says “He is playing basketball, right?”….
Brook goes swish, swish, swish, swish….miss. It’s tied after the first round.
Matthew steps up again. miss. swish. swish. swish. swish. Brook does the same, it’s tied, no suicides’s, everyone is off to get water. Matthew, after his shots, took a deep breath to exhale, it was pretty obvious he was feeling the pressure. I think this drill was the closest we’ve come to replicating the game pressure (and we put some other kids through it in the middle and at the end of practice) to show them just how things change when you have the weight on your shoulders….
But man, under pressure, that boy was just cold as ice. Teach me to not give him his due in the blog!
