Ten Years Ago

On my way to blk134, I simply had the urge to stop and watch them.

I hated wearing bibs because they s-t-a-n-k. The expression on the face always turned into disgust when our coach told us to switch positions meaning we had to exchange bibs. Sweat-soaked bibs.

Fortunately, I was in my fortunate GA world most of the time, in that two-quarters of my court and being allowed into the semi-circle. Wouldn't exchange it for anything else on court.

There was once I skipped all the holiday trainings cos I was sick (and lazy). When I turned up for the 2nd last hol training I expected some sort of scolding or tekan session. But my coach just made me run a few rounds, shoot 50 hoops and told me to join the rest. I thought that wasn't even punishment, it was sheer enjoyment just to run and shoot a few hoops :D

The only time when the coach was angry with me was at the tournament with Punggol Pri. I had just recovered from a bad flu and so I wasn't even supposed to play. But we were losing real terribly like the ball was in the opponents' hands 99% of the time. So I got substituted in but I underperformed due to my illness. Plus the opponents were super rough (idiots until now I still can rmb how they shoved us around) and frankly speaking they were better. So coach was booming like thunder for a whole 40mins and poor me, other than helping to score a few points, whenever the ball was at the other side of the court I squatted down pathetically to recover my stamina. PLUS it was drizzling.

We won a silver because of that insulting match. But we won them the subsequent year.

The best time of my netball life was the tournament with i-can't-rmb-what-school. The final score was 20 something to nil. That poor team, I felt a little apologetic that we trashed them so badly. Their players were terribly demoralised and crushed. But it was sheer fun cos we scored a goal on the average of every 2 minutes. Coach was so lax that she kept substituting people in and out just to let them get the tournament experience. The GS got substituted a few times but I only got subbed once for a short while. So I was secretly happy that I was an important person, permanent point-scorer :D

My team players used to tease me that I'm the best person to be the GA. So skinny, can squeeze through all the gaps to get a free spot. So tall, even if the ball rebounds can jump higher than the rest to catch the ball. Now primary school sounds so childish and far away.

A good season of my life. Ball drills, leg drills, medicine balls, frog leaps, sit ups, long distances, treating your ball like your friend. That was the only time I could run a good whole 1km before panting caught up with me.

I still adore netball, I still love shooting hoops :)

But sigh, how time flies.