Tuesday, 1 February 2005
11:44 PM
My friend Roger and I go once a year to a high school basketball game. As always, we went to a game at Garfield High School. I don't have a favorite team as such, but since my kids go to Garfield, it's the team I'm least likely to be completely uninterested in. Something like that. Last Friday we had our annual date. Garfield was playing Skyline High, a school from Issaquah.
In years past, the real appeal of attending had been in the activity surrounding the game -- listening to the band and watching their drumline, watching the groovy Garfield cheerleading squad, and observing the drama of the high school social scene. For this game, those weren't as entertaining. The band was good, of course, but the drumline didn't do their thing. Garfield fielded a measly eight cheerleaders instead of the 16 they normally have. And the opposing school had a pretty hip gang of cheerleaders, so we missed the amusement of comparing the hip-swinging, hand-jiving Garfield girls against the prim pom-pom waving of the opposing school, as in years past. And there weren't even that many people at the game.
On the other hand, the basketball itself was plenty good. We allowed extra time for traffic and crowds, so we ended up getting there early enough to catch the end of the boys JV game. In fact, there was plenty of time to watch, because the game went into overtime. At the end of the OT, it was 44-44 with 1.3 seconds left on the clock. Garfield's ball. A guy passes it in to guy 2, who's standing on the half-court line. Guy 2 guy makes a Hail Mary heave at the basket, and the ball swishes through, followed by the bell. Stunned moment of silence, and then oh, boy, what yelling. So, Garfield 46, Skyline 44.
Next was girls varsity. Garfield girls are ranked #1 in their division, and oh. my. gosh. did they trounce their opponents -- it was 96-36 when the smoke cleared. I believe Garfield had 12 points on the board before the opposing team ever managed to cross the half-court line. Great defense, great shooting. Garfield has a girl, Malia O'Neal, who is an amazing player. I don't follow sports very closely, but even I could see that this girl was phenomenally talented. Roger said she's got a full-ride scholarship to some hoops-crazy school. She's talented enough to be pro, but unfortunately she's only 5' 5". In high school, possibly in college, her talent will overcome that limitation, Roger opined, but the pro women are getting taller every year and she might not be able to compete with the field. That would be a shame.
The girls game went on and on because the refs blew every little foul. Finally the boys varsity game started, well after 9:00 o'clock. The miraculous ending of the JV game and the girls spectacular showing were hard acts to follow. The boys played well and ended up winning, but between the late hour and the bleachers, which had become quite uncomfortable after three hours, we decided to bag it. It was an entertainig evening, though. I can't wait till next year.
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