Basketball Babes

I've been blessed to serve as the Coach of our Young Women's basketball team this year. We have a great group of girls. This is a photo of just a few of them - those that played this last Saturday. I want to share about what happened at our last game. #3 is Nikita. She has cerebal palsy and is a wonderful girl that I am blessed to know. Basketball is not an easy sport for many and is even harder when you have special physical differences. Nikita got out there and played hard. She tried her best and kept a good attitude.

The referees were great and let her start over again when she travelled. They brought tears to my eyes though when they called a "technical" foul at the end of the game and let her shoot free throws a few feet in front of the free throw line. There was no reason for the technical foul- they wanted to give her a chance to shoot without anyone on her. Both referees agreed to do it and explained to the other team's coach and it was great. No, Nikita didn't make the shots, but as you can tell from her smile in the photo- she loved it.

It was a great game and I'm proud of all the girls. They played hard. When Nikita was on the court it was harder for them and they could have won if Nikita hadn't played, but that wasn't the point. They are a team and worked together. I told the girls that ten years from now they won't remember if they won or lost the games but they would remember that Nikita got to take a shot.