It was crunch time. We were down by four points, with mere seconds left on the clock. I popped open at the top of the key, and the kid inbounding the ball found me. I turned and chucked up a shot that traveled three quarters of the court only to clank off the iron as the buzzer sounded.

An opposing player walked by and said, with a grin, "Thanks for shooting at our basket." Columnists

Ben Fields: Three strange days in youth sports hell (Opinion)

4 min to read

I felt a pit in my stomach as the realization hit me.

It wouldn't have mattered. There wasn't enough time to score twice. Of course, me yeeting the ball to the wrong end of the floor hadn't helped. I also had my pride, and I couldn't believe I had suffered such a mental collapse. My teammates didn't say anything to me, nor d

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