Imagine being in the playoff away game of your high school career, realizing that if you don’t win this game this will be your last high school game and the last time playing with your teammates. It could either go good or bad and the results would both have a lot of emotion.  Just imagine winning the game and

how excited you would be for yourself and your team. Or just imagine losing and going home upset thinking what you could’ve done better and appreciating your coaching staff and teammates. Basketball is emotional and keeping your emotions right is key.

Playing on the basketball team takes a lot of responsibility and commitment – early morning practices on Saturday after a Friday night game, for instance. The passion it takes for everyone on the team to make it on time and put in the hard work takes a lot of time. The little kids who look up to the basketball players are a splendid example of what the players bring to the community. Every day the players come and give their best effort so they can go out on the court to display the skills they show in practice.

INTERVIEWS: (Coach Tobias) (Head coach for Huntingtown High School Basketball team)

• In my interview I asked the head coach for Huntingtown’s basketball team a few questions about what he is looking forward to during this season since they already have a 6-0 record this year. I asked him “How do you feel about your 6-0 record” he said, “I feel really good about it the guys really worked really hard to get here and we are taking one game at a time”.
• Coach Tobias mentioned being on the team and that this is a team sport so “it takes pride from everyone”

(Kyle Jones) (Player for HHS basketball team)

Sources: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/01/17/hs-basketball-

notebook-stone-bridge-with-football-players-back-on-board-looks-strong-ever/.

Overview

Our basketball team is spectacular this year, but it took a while to get here. The players can share what they must do to get ready for games. The routines they do to get ready for practices and games involve “drinking a lot of water and icing before games” -Kyle Jones.

For the past 5 years, with Coach Tobias coaching the team, he has gotten his team

to the SMAC championship in 2020 but lost. Coach Tobias said in the interview “We had a great group these past few years” but this year he feels like this team is special. With the record 6-0 Huntingtown High School looks very good blowing every team out without a chance of teams coming back, except for the rival game with Northern.

Being a Huntingtown High School athlete for basketball takes a lot of pride and one side of that mentioned in my interview with Coach Tobias was that “whoever does something wrong everyone runs. Not just the one person who made the mistake it’s everyone because basketball is a team sport”. Another element of pride mentioned in the interview is defense, Coach Tobias said, “The defense never rests” and there’s a poster of that quote in the gym. Last item of pride is grades – and if you don’t have good grades, Coach Tobias will cut you.

Every single year – freshman to senior – the time goes by fast and in 22 games each year as a player you want to go out on the ‘Canes court and play as hard as you can for the game you say you love. Imagine lining up and getting ready to run out on the court to get in layup lines at a home game with your student section.  It’s a thrilling experience.

So, if you ever thought about being a player for Huntingtown, you need to have a reason why you play and not just because your friends are doing it or your parents are forcing you.

Being an athlete in HHS also takes a lot of responsibility off the court, too. Having bad grades will get you kicked off the team instantly. Coach Tobias even said, “It doesn’t matter if you are averaging 40 points per game, if you are acting like a clown in class and not getting good grades you will get kicked off, sadly.” So, the coaches don’t take it very lightly if you are not up to it in the classroom and Coach Tobias punishes the team if one person messes it up for the team.

The last important thing about being an Athlete at HHS is helping the community out.  The HHS basketball team over the years has gone to homeless shelters to help people out to middle schools and elementary schools to help kids. This is important because kids really look up to older people, especially to high school students, realizing that being an athlete has a great impact on kids.

So, if you want to be a HHS athlete know that you have a lot of responsibilities for yourself and your team.