Tumeshinda! (We Won!)

Coaching basketball has been a good outlet for my teaching frustrations. We have had a lot of girls participating in basketball. There are no official tryouts. We just have practice every afternoon and anyone is welcome to play. Then before games we select 11 girls to suit up.

As in the classroom, it is difficult to build fundamental skills when it is a new group of girls at basketball practice every day. But most of the girls come every day and especially the girls who suit up come consistently.

I’ve almost got every girl who suits up doing lay-ups correctly. It drives me nuts to see girls shooting a right handed lay-up and jumping off their right foot. Their shooting form is getting better too, but it is hard to change people’s habits, even though they haven’t been playing for very long.

For the last two weeks we have been playing in the Songea Basketball Tournament. I was amazed to find out that Songea has a basketball association. And even more amazed when the other coach of our team told me that we would be playing indoors. I couldn’t wait to find out where this gymnasium was. When we arrived at the court on the first day of the tournament I realized I should have been more specific when asking if we were playing indoors. Within doors, yes, but no roof. The court is within an outdoor stadium. The court surface was a bit smoother than the court at Songea Girls, but you still had to be careful where you dribbled. The out of bounds lines were a bit unclear due to age and multiple paintings. During the tournament the rules of the game were also a bit unclear.

Four women’s teams competed in the tournament as well as about ten men’s teams. Some of the teams were from secondary schools, but many of the teams were other clubs. The first match of the tournament was a men’s game of seminary students versus soldiers. The theologians got their butts kicked. Our first game was against Ruvuma secondary school. I played along with my students. The Ruvuma team was pretty good. We scratched out a victory 18 to 15. That first game I tried not to dominate too much and let the students do most of the scoring, but as a result only the starters got to play. So during our next match, which was also against a secondary school, I made sure we got ahead enough in the first half so that everyone got to play.

The final showdown for the championship was last night. We played against a team of female police officers and soldiers who were also undefeated in the tournament. We had watched them play earlier in the week and knew that these women were tough. Against women my own age I had no qualms about playing all out. Almost the whole Songea Girls student body came to watch our match as well as many teachers and our Head Mistress. It was a hard fought game. Those soldiers really wanted to win and played rough, but we got ahead and held them off. I am really proud of how well my girls played. The final score was 34-28. When the final whistle went off the Songea Girls students flooded the court and danced around. As champions of the Songea Basketball Tournament we won the grand prize of a brand new basketball and about $70…not too shabby.

Our next game is this Friday against Songea Boys Secondary School. I’m sure they’ve got nothing on the women soldiers. We can take ‘em.