I need help, thank you so much........?

Look through the Readings section of this book the essay with a first line that interests you. Read the essay. Then fill in the information below.

First line:___________________________________鈥?br>
Did the first line hook you?____________________________________鈥?br>
Was the essay as good as its first line? Explain.________________________________鈥?br>


The atmosphere was tense. We were the top-rated team in the league, on a two game losing streak. It was late in the season. Fatigue had settled in, and our top players were losing their touch.

I looked around in anticipation, scanning the sparse crowd for his face. No show. Maybe telling him about the game just three hours earlier had been too short a notice. Maybe he was busy at home. Maybe it just wasn't important enough to come to.

Of course it wasn't the intercity high-school marquee game or the NBA. It was only the Tuesday night winter league at the downtown YMCA. Yet for the past seven weeks, this aging gymnasium had been my field of dreams.

You see, I hadn't been an athlete while I was growing up. Sure, I ran in the neighborhood and climbed trees, threw rocks and shot bottle-cap guns. But except for a short stint on the seventh-grade track team and a horrific summer in Litttle League baseball, I stuck with the choir and the state. I didn't know how to play basketball. My father hadn't taught me the game, probaably because he head grown up in the hills of east Tennessee and had had me late in life, when he was in his mid-forties. Whatever the reason, I wasn't on the court Saturday mornings hooping. In childhood pickup games, I was a liability to the team. I didn't even look athletic. I wasn't very tall, I had no bulging biceps or explosive calves, and my round, slightly chubby face struck no hear in an opponent. After so many jokes about my dificiencies, I figured out the way to conquer them all: quit. But somehow quitting never stopped the desire within. It just made me dream harder and higher, all the while fearing the serious thought of picking up that ball or hitting that track.

So I grew up with my self-esteem coming from my intellect rather than my physical prowess. Then I went to college and met some brothers and sisters who put some funk into my soul. They helped me discover that my ancestors founded civilizations and were kings and queens and architects and doctors. After a few months of study, I began to believe I could do anything. Anything?

I hit the track on day, or should I say the track hit me? I sputtered along, covering a little more ground each day, until I was running a mile, then two, then three. (Now I run four miles without a problem and work out every day.)

For a year before the night of the big name, I had been playing basketball with a passion. My growth spurt at age 19 had helped me develop my slender six foot two-inch frame, and I would work my legs extra hard. I had finally developed enough confidence to sign up for the league at the local YMCA.

It was also the place where I, at 29 years old, found a chance to live my dream. I might not ever be the lead scorer, but I figured that if I could just score a few points and snatch a few rebounds, I would be satisfied. I had already surpassed the goal, averaging ten points going into that night's game.

I was hanging around the perimeter practicing my now potentially deadly three-pointer. When I finally saw him come through the gym door, my heart leapt. There he was, just as he'd been there there for me so many times before at the choir concert, the play I was starring in or the speech I was giving. But this time my pops was coming to see his boy play ball. I ushered him to a seat in the bleachers as the ref blew the whistle for the opening tip.

I was in the starting lineup, and I fould myself playing harder than I had ever played before. We lost the game by more than 30 points. But I had fun in a strange, boyish sort of way. I scored 13 points, a career high, 9 of them from behind the arc. The last minute of the game I got a steal and passed it downcourt to our big man. He passed it back tp ,e pm tje break. I went up hard and, you guessed it, made a slam dunk! My very first in a game, and my pops was a witness.

As I headed to the locker room in defeat, yet carrying an odd air of victory, I heard a voice in my ear. It was the voice that the latent athlete in me had longed to hear since I was young, uttering the words of empowerment, love and pride.

"You played a good game, son."

Better than you may ever now, PopsI need help, thank you so much........?
The question is pretty straightforward, and personal (there is no right or wrong answer). What's there to ask for help on?