Young Writers Project, an independent nonprofit based in Burlington, engages young people to write and use digital media to express themselves with clarity and power, and to gain confidence and skills for school, the workplace and life.
Check out the most recent issue of The Voice, Young Writers Project’s monthly digital magazine. Click here.
Each week, VTDigger features a writing submission – an essay, poem, fiction or nonfiction – accompanied by a photo or illustration from Young Writers Project.
YWP publishes about 1,000 students’ work each year here, in newspapers across Vermont, on Vermont Public Radio and in YWP’s monthly digital magazine, The Voice. Since 2006, it has offered young people a place to write, share their photos, art, audio and video, and to explore and connect online at youngwritersproject.org. For more information, please contact Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org.
“There were butterflies; otherwise, you’re not really ready to play,” John Starks wrote about his time playing in the NBA. This week’s featured writer, Abby Carson of Newbury, expresses both her passion for basketball and her journey to find the distinction between unhealthy sports anxiety and mere locker-room jitters. Either way, they’re both meant to be conquered.
Always been there
By Abby Carson, 16, of Newbury
Basketball has been my life for as long as I can remember. It’s the biggest commitment I’ve had to make in my life. Hundreds of hours spent on the court, watching tape, thinking about ways to improve. When I step onto the court and get into my flow, there’s an overwhelming rush. My mind is cleared of every problem from the day.
But as much joy as it brings me, there’s also more pressure than I can explain. I’ve been placed in the spotlight as someone who’s supposed to bring the team together and perform. With the weight of expectations from my coaches (one being my father), my teammates, and myself, there have been times that I’ve crumbled.
Basketball is as much a mental game as it is a physical one. You have to be able to see everything all at once, read your defenders and your teammates. Your brain is in constant motion with your body. But I’ve also learned that there’s such a thing as thinking too much.
My sophomore year was probably the worst of it. My first year of true varsity minutes. After only a few games, one of our starters was injured, and I was brought up to take her place. She played a key role in every game, and everybody was watching to see if I could be the same. I felt the hundreds of eyes waiting for me to fail. All I wanted was to do well. All I wanted was to be what my team and my coaches needed me to be. But because I put so much pressure on myself, the opposite happened.
Before games, I couldn’t shut my mind off, couldn’t think straight, focusing on everything I needed to do to be better, obsessing about my mistakes. And with every mistake I’d make, no matter how small, I’d dig myself deeper into that hole. It just continued to get worse. Panic attacks before and after games. Constantly wondering why I wasn’t getting better, and why I couldn’t perform. The self-deprecation overwhelmed my thoughts. It felt like everything was collapsing in on me, and that I’d never be able to get out of it.
It ruined my season. I began to hate basketball because of the way it made me feel. The anxiety oozed out into other aspects of my life, making everything suck. After the season ended, I took a break from basketball. Months of not practicing, not watching, not thinking. And somewhere in that break, I found a way to cope. To stop worrying so much, and to just play for the love of the game. To take the worry, anger, and every other emotion and use it to make myself better.
This season, even more pressure has been added: I’m a starter and now a captain. I’d love to say that the crumbling anxiety has completely left me, but it hasn’t. I still spend hours thinking about my mistakes and how I need to be better. But I’m now able to turn it off. To stop thinking and just be present in the game. With that, I’ve refound my passion and love for the sport that’s always been there.
