Undergraduate / "Basketball: endure a little longer" - choose one extracurricular activity [6]

I have never been considered naturally skilled at basketball but one day, something amazing changed my life: the 1998 NBA finals between Chicago Bulls and Utah Jazz. The passion, the physical collision between players, the powerful dunks, the electrifying speed，everything about that series locked my eyes onto the basketball players and their performances, and that was my first true impression about basketball and I knew I was addicted.

Then I threw myself into the basketball the difficult, grinding fundamentals: shooting the ball till my arm would almost fall off, running the court back and forth till I nearly collapsed, bending and stretching up and down till I was wincing, and all leading to me in constant pain. Therefore, you can imagine I was always the boy remaining in the basketball court after school, shooting the ball 1000 times or dribbling for hours, no matter how dark the sky had become.

My passion towards the game of basketball never ends, even though I suffered a severe injury on my right knee in Grade11.Because of the injury, I go to school everyday using crutches, and climb each tall stairwells to my classroom with crutches, causing huge pain. Also, the absence of basketball left a huge void in my mind and in my heart. The time I suffered this great pain both mentally and physically was the lowest moment in my life, but I tried to get used to it and viewed it as a require lesson for my growth, maturity, and understanding.

Later, I had a surgery on my right knee, which caused me to forgo any kinds of sports activities for one year, particularly basketball. Physical rehabilitation was so full of pain and frustration，lifting my legs and hips into unnatural shapes, pressing the knee into extreme litheness, and bending down backward till tears came out. However, it was this moment that I realized basketball was still in my life, and basketball has long been my deepest passion and I soon used it as a motivation to continue my rehabilitation.

My motto in basketball is to always" endure a little longer". Regarding this motto as my newfound inner strength, I was able to follow my own advice and "endure a little longer" in every situation and I discovered that the more I could endure, the less intolerable a situation would be. I learned to be optimistic towards the adversities I encountered, because I realized that to" endure a little longer" was the first step in conquering any obstacle, no matter how difficult. I learned to be strict with myself and completed every rehabilitation movement as perfectly as possible; I learned to be responsible for my own faults and indolence; I learned to be independent, for I had to face all the difficulties as well as the injuries by myself. The hardships in practicing were still there and degree of difficulty did not decrease but, in fact, increased. However, these aspects of playing basketball again no longer seemed like impossible mountains to climb, but simply tasks that needed time and patience to conquer.

Today I still cannot walk without crutches and playing basketball is still a distant dream, yet it's a real dream that I will reach again. My love and passion for basketball continue to push me, to motivate me to stay on my path and take the responsibility for my effort, for my spirit, and for my life.