Why I still do middle school basketball

[Adam]

7th grade girls B game. Red shoots, and after a scrum for the rebound, white knocks it OOB under the basket. Red ball. Immediately, 8 players head the other way, and two red jerseys stay by me. I say red ball two more times just to cover myself, and my partner starts drifting back with all the players. We make eye contact to ensure we're on the same page.

Red 16 looks at me and asks, "Aren't we shooting down here?" I smile and say, "yes." She doesn't seem to believe me. Finally, her teammate throws the ball in, and after what seemed like an eternity of indecisiveness, 16 shoots and makes a layup. Coaches (both sides) are red with laughter while I announce that it's white's ball since red just made a basket.

Later in the game, when white is down with under two minutes left, they start pressing. Red gets confused (no backcourt in this league unless a team is behind with less than two minutes left in a half) and just sort of stands there. Partner gets to 10 and realizes they aren't going anywhere so he calls it. White gets the ball and heads the other way for a backcourt violation.

Coach for Red, laughing, walks over to the division line to tell White's coach, "That's what you get for pressing."

Honestly, I can't remember having that much fun on a court; not jolly belly-laugh fun.