Today I went to my first Bonnie Brae Knights basketball game. It was probably the first basketball game I've been to since I was in high school. The air was buzzing with the same excitement that I remember from high school except, as our residents are all boys, there wasn't the same walking the bleachers game girls used to play to catch the boys' eyes. Flirting was out of the picture. It was all testosterone and pride because it was the 2009-2010 NJNCAA Championship game. Everyone was high on hopes.
The first quarter it felt like we might lose but I was staunchly positioned on the floor right near the free-throw line. I fully expected to get an elbow or ball right in the face a few times as they fought with all their might to keep the ball on their half of the court. But it seemed like all the boys of BB wanted to do was throw 3-point shots and miss terribly each time before #14, a short but fast and skilled kid, from the opposing team slung the ball back down to Tiger Territory.
It was a push-pull game. The other team, from a co-ed school, had cheerleaders (something I overheard Coach blithely warning the boys would cause him to break their nice shiny trophy if they caused a scene over). The girls cheered and their fans roared. Then the principal of the school came out with a massive sign on whiteboard proudly declaring that Bonnie Brae would be "bringing home the big trophy." She handed it to one of the more academic looking kids who ran back and forth in front of his peers and authority figures on the bleachers around me. Everyone cheered. We rivaled the cheerleaders and fans as the boys barreled through another 3 quarters.
Then it was down to 6 seconds on the clock. Knights - 39, Tigers - 38. Our team had gotten overzealous as the pressure rose, fouling a lot of those points onto the board for the Tigers. Two time-outs as the clock wound its way down. Each second a breathless hope that the boys who worked so hard to overcome the struggles life threw at them would have a victory.
#12 raced down toward my feet, the sideline is extremely narrow in our gym. My eyes must have been huge with intensity and fear that I might lose a toe or two. I was so preoccupied, and so was he with keeping the ball away from the scrappy opposing #14, that when the buzzer sounded to signal the end of the game I was knocked breathless by the shouting and cheering around me.
We won the championship. And for someone like me, who has so much work to do that time away from my desk can be pretty detrimental, it was well worth my time to be there. It was such a huge morale booster and for the second time since I started with this organization, we were all one family. Celebrating the success as one because we had all been part of it.
-- A Bonnie Brae Staff Member
