"If There Were No Sports, What Would We Watch During The Holidays?"

(The title to this post is from a banner I saw while watching the Sacramento v. Dallas NBA Game on Christmas)

On the day after Christmas, instead of going out shopping, I went with my dad to the Proviso West Holiday Basketball Tournament. This West Suburban high school tournament is known as one of the best high school tournaments not just in the Chicago area, but the country as well. We were able to go because the high school team my uncle coaches—the Tigers of Sullivan High School—were invited to the tournament. My dad and I were put on the guest list and got in free. When we came in, one game was already going on between Homewood-Flossmoor and Fenger high schools. Homewood-Flossmoor is about 15-20 minutes away from where I live (in the South Suburbs) and Fenger is in Chicago (on the South Side, I believe). It was a blowout. Homewood-Flossmoor whipped that poor team by more than 50 points. It was mostly because Fenger had only 6 players total. While H-F could replace an entire lineup, Fenger had only one sub.

After the game ended, Sullivan played Glenbrook North. The difference between the two was jarring even before the game began. Sullivan was all African-American (save for one short Asian guy) and Glenbrook North was all white (save for one person who looked Indian). Sullivan’s team was pretty small heightwise, compared to Glenbrook North as well. Unfortunately, this lead to Sullivan losing to Glenbrook North by 20 points. Sullivan started good, but Glenbrook North had one very good player named Jon Scheyer that killed them, scoring 35 points...and he’s just a Sophomore! He could be very very good if he continues to improve. In the end, I enjoyed myself. I hadn’t been to an actual basketball game of any kind for a long time, so it was good to see one. I’d like to go see the Bulls one day in the future...or maybe just go to an NU one eventually.