Review My Old-School Writing

[epdaws]

After reading KKF and JP's recent writing, I was reminded of a piece I wrote back in college. It had a similar theme to JP's. Looking back, I was curious to see what I liked and did not. I don't do as much feature writing these days, and I'm curious to hear what you think. I'm probably quite rusty.

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Andrea Gay hates airplanes. Hates looking at them, thinking about them, and most of all, riding in them. Tonight, though, the 20-seat charter is her only way to Buffalo, where the Ohio women’s basketball team will take on the Buffalo Bulls tomorrow night. It is little more than a coke can with wings, and for Gay, the Bobcats’ starting point guard, the only options are valium or no valium.

So Gay acquiescently ascends the metal steps to the plane. This freshman from Roanoke, Virginia is five foot nine, which is about six inches taller than the aircraft’s ceiling. She stoops to her seat near the back and sits next to freshman Candace Bates, her roommate and best friend on the team. Bates gives Gay a look to assess her anxiety, and Gay flashes an uneasy grin.

“No valium,” she explains, with just a subtle touch of Roanoke.

That’s not the case for some of the older members of the team. Several players would gladly take enough valium to inundate a mastodon, but team doctor Bill Platt is only allocating small dosages tonight. Head coach Lynn Bria decides to forego the sedative, but she insists, “I’ll feel a lot better when we’re back on the ground.”

The January 27th plane crash that took the lives of two Oklahoma State men’s team players and eight staffers has rocked much of the college basketball world. The tension is palpable every time an away game approaches.

As the plane rumbles across the runway, Gay asks her surrounding mates, “Anyone want to pray?” Four players join hands and Gay leads the terse sermon. When the prayer ends, and the plane climbs to more than 15,000 feet, Gay immerses herself in her homework, only occasionally glancing at the magenta tones of the setting sun to her left. The 80-minute flight has begun smoothly.

Concentration used to be a problem for Andrea. As a fourth grader she had trouble focusing in class and was held back the next fall – a decision that devastated her at the time. But she explains that the move was the start of a slow but steady change that she was determined to make. Her focus on the court earned her a scholarship to OU, and at this moment, it allows her to stick to Marx instead of imagining disaster in the sky.

Of course, the unexpected, seat belts-mandatory, almost-make-you-puke turbulence doesn’t help.

“Give me the day-em val-yem,” she demands to Dr. Platt, falling back on a thick dose of Roanoke in search of any comfort she can find.

Sixty-eight minutes later the plane is descending toward Buffalo International Airport, and Gay’s heart is ascending toward her throat. She squeezes Bates’ hand like an impatient boa constrictor wrapping up a sewer rat. But then a smile begins to cross her face, and she lets an hour of anxiety out in one, long, breath. Gay leans back and appears relaxed for the first time as the plane lands without incident.

“It was a lot worse a few weeks ago,” she says, back at the Hampton Inn. “I think I’m starting to get the hang of it.”

Coach Bria thinks Gay is starting to get the hang of running the point for a Division One program as well. Andrea was supposed to be the backup to junior Jacquie Negrelli, but Negrelli quit the team around Christmas and the job was handed to Gay.

“She’s playing at the level of a sophomore now,” Bria says of Gay. “She’s solid. She’s starting to get a lot more confidence out there.”

Gay explains that in her first college start, confidence was not a part of her vocabulary.

“I was scared. I just looked out and saw all those people and thought, ‘I can’t throw up in front of this crowd.’ But I love it now. I want the ball and I want to make things happen.”

She’s starting to do just that. In the first half against Buffalo Gay uses a pretty crossover move to finish a left-handed layup that helps Ohio put together a 13-2 run. Gay also contributes on the defensive end, holding the opposing point guard scoreless. Ohio leads by a point at the half in a game that could end a four-game losing skid.

Gay gets Ohio’s next basket forty seconds into the second half by driving to her left and kissing one off the glass. As the game remains close, Gay remains on the floor and takes on the role of distributor. Her unselfish offense helps set up numerous buckets by junior guard Cathy Czall, who will make six three-point shots by the game’s end.

At the 12:10 mark, Gay draws a foul on another aggressive slash to the basket and connects on both free throws, cutting the Buffalo lead to 43-42. But a few minutes later, Gay misses an open three. Her weakness has been her outside game, which she says is essential to opening up the rest of her offense.

A late Ohio run ties the game at 67 and sends it to overtime. Bria sticks with her freshman point guard in the extra frame, and Gay continues to play solid defense. With 45 seconds left and Ohio trailing by three, Gay feeds her roommate Bates, who knocks down a 24-foot bomb to tie the game.

Suddenly the future is the present, and the game is heading for a second overtime.

“It’s on,” Gay tells her teammates in the huddle. “We’ve worked too hard to lose this.” There is not a hint of Roanoke this time.

Trailing by three with 12 seconds remaining, Gay grabs a rebound and storms down the court and into the lane. Instead of spotting a wide open Cathy Szall, she forces a running one-hander that bounces off the rim. So much promise ends with a thud. The confidence that has helped Gay progress as a player gets the best of her in an intensely pressurized moment.

Still, Bria is more than pleased with her team’s effort. She heaps praise on her freshman point guard, citing Gay’s growing maturity.

Minutes later, the bus is silent, save for the dissonance of gnashing teeth and disappearing pizza. Gay sits across from Bates at the back of the bus on the short ride to the airport.

Back on the plane, Andrea does not ask for valium. She does not even think of it.

She’s focused on her performance.

“I’m going to make mistakes,” Gay explains quietly, slightly embarrassed, like a toddler caught sticking a finger in a pie. “I get us in position to win and I can’t finish. That’s going to change.”

As the plane lifts its nose into the night, Gay seems about as nervous as she does in the second halves of Ohio games. Which is to say, not very. Not anymore.

“This flight shouldn’t be too hard,” she says. “Every time I’m in these situations, I get a lot more comfortable.”

[schundler]

i stopped reading after I saw the girl was a female basketball player. make her a hooker or a stripper

[epdaws]

[ QUOTE ]
i stopped reading after I saw the girl was a female basketball player. make her a hooker or a stripper

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL, I should have known back then that strippers sell.