My sister was a basketball freak. She played basketball rain or shine. The small concrete slab in front of our house was her "court" and we had a hand-me-down goal that she wore out. I never really had a choice of weather or not I was going to play with her, she made me play. She is four years older than me, so she had quite a bit more strength than I did so making a shot in a ten foot goal was nothing to her. However, for me ten feet might have well been a mile. I couldn't even hit the net when I shot the ball, so my sister had the idea to stack five gallon buckets up and make me a goal. This did give me some what of an advantage, or so I thought. My bucket goal was only about five feet tall but what I now realize is that a basketball is a tight fit in a five gallon bucket and I had no backboard. My chances of making anything in that bucket were slim to none. I don't even know if my sister realized this or not either.
She beat me every single time we played, unless we were playing teams and Ross was on my team. Ross was much bigger than Ashley and he made ten feet seem like ten inches. Ross would pick me up and let me make it or let me throw the ball and then he would give it a boost to the goal. When we teamed up, Ryan was on Ashley's team and Ross wouldn't let them steal the ball from me, which always happened when it was just me and Ashley. Teams were the only way I had a shot a winning. The older I got, the better I got. Eventually, I was able to make a shot in the ten foot goal and my fundamental skills were getting better. My sister was also getting better so the games were starting to get more intense. I think that I probably only beat her 2 or 3 times but I wouldn't have traded our driveway basketball games for anything. When I was playing those games I didn't think about how close my siblings and me got from playing them, but looking back now, we spent a whole lot of time on that court and my brothers didn't even like basketball. They just played with me and my sister.
I think my love for basketball all started by being forced to play for hours on that little concrete slab at my house. I credit my sister for making me better but I would also like to take the credit for making her better because I rebounded the ball for countless hours, let her use me as an practice dummy, and steal the ball from me all the time. I would also like to say that Ashley was rarely a humble winner so she taught me to be a somewhat graceful loser. She went on to play college ball so I would say that I was quite the practice partner. So, you're welcome Ashley.
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