I have been playing basketball since third grade, but I have been watching my brother and sister play for about as long as I can remember. Basketball has been in my life for awhile and there has always been competition against the other towns in our Union.

We play against Poland and Minot and we learn to not appreciate them growing up. They become rivals and we might not be as friendly towards them as other people. When we all come together in high school, we’re expected to play with them. How do they expect us to play with the people we’ve been playing against for so long? With a basketball team, everyone on the team needs to trust each other and know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s hard to do that with a few practices.

It seems people have realized this is hard to do because there are now 6th, 7th and 8th grade travel teams for all three towns. It’s helped me start to make friends with girls from other towns. I hope they continue the travel teams. High school basketball will be a lot easier now that I know the girls a little better.

I think the recreation basketball system should be changed so that we aren’t playing against them, and play with them. This would make for successful basketball years in high school.