A whoopin' of epic proportions

As part of coming back for my second year at the same school I hoped to become more actively involved in school-life. I feel like I have successfully become more integrated as a teacher and part of the framework at IES Las Salinas, but I was still hoping to become more involved in the limited extra-curricular activities offered. One of the ideas was to help coach the rag-tag basketball team that we put out, one that I would play with occasionally last year at lunch or after school.

Well, the season hasn’t officially started, but one of the PE teachers entered us into a tournament run through the Malaga professional team, Unicaja. By entering the tournament we got a free shirt and tickets to a game, and the tournament champs would represent Unicaja as the team’s Juniors squad. I volunteered to help out, and went with the team to Malaga to play against another school.

When we got there it was pretty clear we’d be outmatched from the get-go. For one, they had jerseys. We had white shirts of various shades. They had about 20 players. We had seven. They had beards. We did not (a crucial disadvantage in the high school game.) Our players were all in their 4th year at school, meaning more or less 15-16 years old, while the other team was clearly from “bachillerato” (normally two years between high school and university, essentially added on to most high schools) meaning they were most likely 16-18 years old. Above all, this team obviously had practiced and we obviously had not.

I’ll fast forward through most of the game, but I will say this much: if this game would have been played in the United States, it would have easily made national news and there would be an outcry to have the opposing coach fired. How bad was it, you may ask? Well, we went 1-10 from the free-throw line, and while I don’t have the exact statistics for field goals and turnovers, I have some estimates: Field goals – none; turnovers- around 50. That’s right, if you’ve done the math correctly, we had one point to their 94. 94-1 was indeed the final score. The opposing team played full-court press the entire game and we probably turned the ball over before crossing half court about 50% of the time. I was absolutely dumbfounded, first by the apparent lack of sportsmanship, but later by the apparent lack of the notion of sportsmanship- it obviously didn’t exist, but I seemed to be the only one noticing it wasn’t there. It led me to believe that it just isn’t a concern, because our “coaches” weren’t fazed by its inexistence. Only some sarcastic cheering from the opposing bench on our one free-throw in the 3rd quarter brought a warning from the referee (who by all accounts was very nice and let a lot slide for us.)

A couple days later we went to the Unicaja pro game. I had been a good 5 times before, but it was fun going with my students/coaches, and the game itself was great! Came back from 7 down with a couple minutes left to win by 4, thanks in part to former NCAA star Juan Dixon who we just signed. I loved him in college and it’s fun having him on our team this year. He scored 11 straight to end the game and finished with 26 points, and after the game the crowd was chanting “Deeeee-sooooon, Deeee-sooooon.” I tried to get a “U-S-A, U-S-A” chant going but it didn’t catch on. I can’t get the pictures from the game to upload so here’s one of everyone’s favorite Unicaja mascot, Chicui.