The student news site of Naperville North High School

The North Star

The student news site of Naperville North High School

The North Star

The student news site of Naperville North High School

The North Star

Cut: a lesson about basketball and life

After getting cut from the varsity basketball team, sports editor Jay Ahuja shares how he dealt with and learned from the disappointment

By Sports Editor Jay Ahuja

I looked around and realized that I was the only one there.Jay

I was sitting on a bench outside the main entrance to NNHS. It was around six o’clock in November so the city of Naperville was already shrouded in darkness. I was still waiting for my ride. After a few more minutes of eerie silence, I was engulfed in self-pity. The tears began to well in my eyes.

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I wanted to remain strong and remind myself that I had dealt with worse conditions, but as I was sitting on that bench, my only thoughts were those of failure. It was my junior year, and I had just received the news that I was cut from the varsity basketball team. I had faced disappointment before, but this time it was different. Maybe it was the brotherly bond that I built with some of the members of the team, and now I couldn’t help feeling left behind. Maybe it came to me that the hours and hours of work put in at the gym was a waste; maybe it’s because, for the first time in my life, I religiously dedicated myself to an activity but still came up short. Whatever it was, something clicked in my head and my thoughts went all over the place.

For five grueling months, I had invested my heart and soul into this basketball team. Yet, it just wasn’t enough. When the head basketball coach called me into the locker room to tell me that I didn’t make the team, he said that while I had an impressive work ethic, my skill level wasn’t at varsity caliber. I agreed that I didn’t have the skill to play at that level, but ever since I was a kid, all I knew was that if you put in enough effort, the rewards would surely follow. It killed me knowing that my best wasn’t good enough. I thought I had it bad. Try having to deal with that realization for five consecutive years.

NNHS senior Danny Simmons had been attempting to make the school basketball team from 7th grade until 11th grade. Simmons decided against trying out this year because the pain of being cut had become too much to bear.

“The feeling you get after getting cut is terrible because you start to get negative on yourself, and it makes you feel like you suck at that sport,” Simmons, a tennis player as well, said. “It really becomes an emotional burden.”

After years of being told that he’s not good enough, Simmons threw in the towel this year and chose to focus on his job and studies instead. However, I went down a different path and tried out for the team this year. I worked even harder than the year before and had a stronger emotion to motivate me: Determination.

I was determined to prove everyone who said that Indians couldn’t play basketball wrong. I was determined to show the mental toughness I had in the face of adversity. Every morning before school, my friend and I would go to the local gym and lift weights, run on the treadmill, and play basketball until we only had five minutes before school started. My friend, a junior, also had a sincere passion to make the team so we would constantly encourage each other when the other started to give up.

After another five months of preparation, I walked into the contest gym with full confidence. Try-outs were harder than ever because a lot of talented athletes had moved from different areas to NNHS. With the competition at a much higher level, I had to overcome a lot of obstacles, most of them mental. When tryouts were done and the coaches were ready to make their decision, I knew I left it all on the court.

Coach called me in his office, and he told me that while I had improved vastly over the last year and my love for the game was great, I didn’t have the same talent as my former teammates. I didn’t make the team.

The news hurt.

I shook hands with the coach, walked out of his office, and waited on the bench at the entrance to NNHS. It was pretty dark. I looked around, and no was around. Before my emotions could get the best of me, I remembered what Simmons told me. You can work extremely hard to get what you want, but sometimes it just doesn’t pay off. But that’s life, and through failure, you’re only learning more about yourself. Basketball may not be my forte, but I have plenty of other strengths to be proud of. With that knowledge, I stood up and walked into the night.

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Cut: a lesson about basketball and life