Basketball Poems

Basketball Poems Competition 2005

"Basketball - Poetry in Motion"

Celebrating the game of basketball in poems

         A site by Garo Salibian

Special InternationalBasketball.com Feature

Submit your basketball poems at: worldbasketball@yahoo.com or info@internationalbasketball.com  

Basketball Poems website sections:

Basketball Poems 2006 Competition

Contains winners for all years and new participating basketball poems for this year

Basketball Poems 2005 Competition

Contains the three winners and all other participating basketball poems

Basketball Poems 2004 Competition

Contains the three winners and all other participating basketball poems

Basketball Poems 2003 Competition

Contains the three winners and all other participating basketball poems

Basketball Poems Links and Media

Basketball Poems Online

Section 4. Basketball Poems Online

Back to InternationalBasketball.com Home Page

Winners "Competition 2005":

First Prize: Rachel Furey: "Just A Game"

Second prize: Daniel Shelton: "Ballers and Friends"

Third Prize: John Hennings: "The Touch"

Other contestants "Competition 2005":

Cole Bossman: "Baller For Life"

Raquel Felder: "It's All About The Hustle"

Caitlin Johnson: "Dream On" (dedicated to Lauren Jackson)

Nicole Lonning: "The BenchWarmer's Creed"

Shonda Merrill: "My Game"

Skylar Middleton: "Faces"

Sherry Jeanette Mlakar: "No Shame"

Belinda Ortiz: "Basketball"

Belinda Ortiz: "I Can Take You"

Kyle Wong: "Dedication"

Basketball Poems 2005 Competition Winners

First Prize

Just A Game

By Rachel Fury

It’s just a game they say-

Tell it to the kid who gave up smokin’

who’s no longer stuck jokin’ about cancer-

because someone gave him a token to play

Tell it to the kid who just dropped a sweet dime

saw the smile on his daddy’s face for the first time

found that on the court he had rhythm and rhyme

Tell it to the girl who finally found a place

where she doesn’t have to put on a new face

and she can take on the world at her own pace

Tell it to the guys who bang the boards at noon

knowing their lunch hour will be through soon

stickin’ around because this game plays their tune

Tell it the kid who just joined his first team

who finally found out what the word means

because it’s something his family never seemed

Tell it to the people with empty pockets

who feel rich when the ball hits the net like a rocket

the adrenaline pulsing like it came from an electrical socket

Tell it to the kids in a gun-riddled city

who have to grow up hard and gritty

people tellin’ them they’ll never be witty

You know what they’d say don’t you

who are you- if you had half a clue

if only you knew what they had to do

you’d know it was the only way to see it through

© 2005 Rachel Furey

Rachel is a SUNY Brockport senior student with a major in English and minor in Coaching

and Environmental Science. For her, basketball has always been more than just a game. 

She has long loved basketball and writing and often finds herself mixing the two.

She enjoys sitting down to write after a hard pick up game. She even wrote a term paper

for an advanced composition course on the advantage of short players in basketball.

She says: "From shoveling off the court in the winter to play, to pick-up games with

the guys at the Y, it has been a great release, a great way to clear the mind, and a place

that I can always feel at home".

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Second Prize

Ballers and Friends

By Daniel Shelton

from the first time i saw him

i knew he would go

straight to the top

and beside him i'd flow,

he'd hit every three

and stuff all your shots,

the absolute king

of the ball on our lot.

now jeremy told me not to try

he was that good,

but for the love of the game

i'd put him to shame,

the first match i'd lost

and my pride seemed to fall,

i swore to this kid

i'd be back and we'd ball.

i'm not the best

i do miss my share,

but i've got the heart

and he's got the spark,

now my mind is made up

it's time to return

back to the lot

and stuff this kid's shots.

i remember it clear

the look on his face

when i blocked his first shot

hard into his face

he stared in amazement

he knew it was time,

he knew we weren't playing

the game on the line

we played with our hearts

and realized it then...

that we're ballers....

.... we're friends....

© 2005 Daniel Shelton

Daniel Sheldon wrote this poem about a friend, Kyle.

"He is a real good basketball player... Probably this guy's the best I've ever seen" Dan says,  

"and I'm not just saying that because he is my friend... 

We play basketball all day everyday and I'm right behind him...we both love the game more than anybody.....

we play in the cold and when its windy, we play 2 games back-to-back with friends to 100 and then play some more...."

E-mail: bballer_23_2004@yahoo.com   

Third Prize

The Touch

By John Hennings

The touch has never left me

I find warmth in the cold winter sun

And seeing the breath from my lungs

Whisper of wind keeps me company

Dire Straights can replay the memory

"Boy has dedication, the boy can play"

I feel the tingling in my finger tips

And I smile knowing I still have the touch

I drive by my old street corner

No longer a spot on the boulevard

That I wore out with my own two feet

Some say you can't find dreams

On a down hill road following a dead end street

But I was too stubborn to know what that means

Before I had a hoop of my own

I shot on any hoop around

Mr. Hare had a hoop on his garage

Worried about his window, so he took it down

And some years later it seems

He forgot about me coming around

Put up that black and white backboard

Wondered if he still recognized that sound

He says to me aren’t you

You must be that funny kid

Before he could say who I was

I said yea that was me

Twenty years ago and not aware of reality

But I had this to say to him

The touch has never left me

I find warmth in the cold winter sun

And seeing the breath from my lungs

Whisper of wind keeps me company

Dire Straights can replay the memory

"Boy has dedication, the boy can play"

I feel the tingling in my finger tips

And I smile knowing I still have the touch

I no longer chase my dreams

From sun up to sun down

But this I know

The touch has never left me

I find warmth in the cold winter sun

And seeing the breath from my lungs

Whisper of wind keeps me company

Dire Straights can replay the memory

"Boy has dedication, the boy can play"

I feel the tingling in my finger tips

And I smile knowing I still have the touch

Basketball Poems 2005 Competition 

Other Participants

In alphabetical order of participant

(All original submissions are copyright of the writers)

Baller For Life

By Cole Bossman

Sweat drips down my determined face,

To the left and to the right are the boundaries of my place,

Whether it be a driveway or Madison Square,

Anytime of day, I can be found there,

Night after night, shot after shot,

Swish after swish, spot after spot,

Every make an extreme burst of bliss,

A punch in the stomach with every miss,

The fluid motion, the flick of the wrist,

The crispness of the pass, on every assist,

Poetry in motion every step of the way,

A feeling no player in words can ever convey,

But when I look around this universal court,

I know that I’m truly in the right sport,

Because the life doesn’t choose you,

It’s the life that you have to pursue,

In this game nothing comes free,

But that’s the way I like it, the way it should be.

© 2005 Cole Bosmann

Cole Bosmann calls himself "Baller for Life". This is his second contribution to our site and the first for 2005.

He won the first prize for our Basketball Poems 2004 competition with "Basketball". 

E-mail: cole_bosmann@hotmail.com   

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It's All About The Hustle

By Raquel Felder

Whether it’s a 3 on 3 or a Ruff,

1 on 1 or organized ball, you play tuff

You go for loose balls, and dive on the floor

Going until your body can’t take it anymore

And even after that…you still give it your all

“D’n” up, denying the ball

“Offense sells tickets but defense wins championships” Pat Summit once said

So play smart in the game and use your head

Block it, steal it, rip it, or take it

Alter someone’s shot and hope they don’t make it

Don’t fall for the fake, stay on your feet and don’t leave the ground

Box out after each and every shot hoping to grab every rebound

Go up strong or don’t go up at all

Make your defender leap as you fake the ball

Have a little fun from half court as you chuck it

In hopes to hear the crowd scream after making a half time bucket

The second half is here and your TEAM is down by 1

And this is where your heart and hustle have to come

You get a good steal on “d” as you hustle up the floor

They’re “D’in” you up well but you see your center open for a back door

You give them a great lead pass and she sinks the basket

FOUL, And 1, she gets a three-point play, “Classic”

Your team is up by 2 and you know what you have to do

Give it your all and use all your muscle

Don’t give up and don’t stop the hustle

Time is winding down and the other team has the ball

As you play “D”, you dream about leaving the gym standing tall

Seconds go by and the opposing team is yet to make their move

You’re patiently waiting to see whom they’ll choose

As fate would have it they pass the ball to the girl you’re defending

This girl was huge and when I said huge I’m not pretending

You brace yourself though, ready to compete

All you could think about was staying on your feet

She made her move and pushed you away like you were jell-o

And all you felt was your chest make contact with her elbow

As time wound down

You fall to the ground

She turned around and took her shot

The ball went straight through the net although you hoped it had not

Your heart sank as you saw the ball drop

You felt as though all your hopes and dreams were shot

But then all of a sudden the whistle blew

And at that moment you knew

Then you heard the Ref call out

Offensive Foul! The basket does not count!!

The buzzer sounded and the crowed was at large

For you made the biggest play of the game… you took the game winning charge.

Now that’s PURE HUSTLE!

© 2005 Raquel Felder

Raquel Felder 16. She has  been playing basketball since she was 4.

She wrote this poem as a final project for a class this year. Inspiration for this poem came 

from a non-fictional experience she went through while having to guard a taller person during a big game,

and the offensive foul part, she took from the movie "Love and Basketball" just because

it's one of my favorite basketball movies along with "Hoop Dreams"

E-mail: rakel_7189@yahoo.com

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Dream On

(dedicated to Lauren Jackson)

By Caitlin Johnson

Caitlin Johnson is an Australian 15 and goes to a deaf school. She loves basketball,

and is inspired by Lauren Jackson and Michele Timms, calls them the greatest persons one can  ever meet.

And every she gets back from school, she is always playing basketball with her younger brother

"I inspire him too, and he help me...:)

She loves to look at famous people's quotes, because they encourage us to be positive

She  got lots of positive inspiration from Lauren Jackson. She believes she can be in the Olympics.
"Hopefully, all I need is training hard, it doesn't means if we are deaf, we are disadvantaged.
Even if we can't hear, it doesn't matter, as we have same skills as those who hear."

E-mail:  pjohnson3@keypoint.com.au

Nicole Lonning is a sophomore at Winona State, MN. She was a basketball player at high school,

but now competes on the track and field team. She says she wrote this poem after hearing about a senior

that was in the same situation the writer was in two years earlier, when she quit basketball in frustration.

She concludes: It isn't always the most talented people that are the best players,

but the ones with the most heart.
E-mail: NALonnin3386@webmail.winona.edu 

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Faces

By Skylar Middleton

E-mail: littlewhiteboy18@yahoo.com

She concludes: "It is a privilege to play basketball"

E-mail: Lilsher24@aol.com

She is a sophomore in a small school. She says she has been playing basketball all her life

and loves to play with the guys because playing makes her better.

since 5th grade and since grade 7. Kyle, recognizing the adversities that student athletes

face has wrote this poem  to explain the challenges that student athletes face during a basketball

season and most importantly the dedication basketball players put into their sport.

E-mail:  kylw4790@yahoo.com

 .

About This Basketball Poems Site:

The game of basketball, much loved and practiced around the world, has been celebrated many times

in poems written mostly by amateur writers, young and old, and at times even by known poets indeed.

This is hardly surprising as the game of basketball has high esthetic value inherent in the game,

a game that has always aspired to the higher and better to be almost a "poetry in motion"

Our directory site "International Basketball Directory" was, and still is a successful basketball

reference site frequently referred to by many basketball players, officials and fans.

However the page entitled  Basketball Poetry where I compiled a collection of poems and stories

published on the web proved from its first day of launch to be one of the most, if not the most popular

of the sections that we featured on our directory. It was almost like magic, as from the first week that

I launched the page, I started receiving a great number of  communications thanking me for these

specific pages and asking for more.

The California poet laureate Quincy Troupe has testimony about the power of basketball on audiences.

He has various tours where he reads a selection of his poems to his audiences. He also makes a point of

visiting different high schools. When he is confronted with younger audiences,  he can't resist but recite

one of his poems entitled "Poem for Magic" and dedicated to the basketball player Magic Johnson.

Troupe admits that as soon as he gets to this particular piece, he knows that he has captured their attention

and fascination. He says that kids usually think that poetry is going to be about almost anything but basketball.

So when he gets to that basketball poem, their eyes suddenly light up, whatever their origin, he says.

Thus the raison-d'etre of our "Basketball Poems" site.

In this free space, we will publish your basketball poems, giving you the opportunity to showcase

your talents and to allow everybody to enjoy this great game in beautiful verse.

                                                                                                                                              -Garo Salibian