Chapter 34 The First Compet.i.tion 2
What was written on the banner above the registration desk that caused the claim of all the people who wanted to partic.i.p.ate and also of their families was [To partic.i.p.ate in any compet.i.tion today and run for the $ 500 prize, who sign up will have to pay a $ 10 registration fee.]
In fact, Jake was calm because he was already expecting it, and what was happening was not entirely because of the people gaining from the organization, but came from a need caused by the negligence of the people organizing the tournament.
Jake had already asked his mother to bring in $ 60 if the application was 20, Eva agreed, as she thought Jake had seen somewhere on the poster that she had a registration fee.
Jake guessed this because he had already partic.i.p.ated in several tournaments, not sports more than other things, sometimes they charge a fee to be able to give a bigger prize and many people accept this, but when this happens generally the tournament has few partic.i.p.ants, because only people who have some confidence to win or just want to have fun and do not mind spending a little money for it want to partic.i.p.ate.
That"s why Jake a.n.a.lyzed that the private school and the radio were dividing up the expense of the 2000 tournament prize and also the organization of that because he only saw tournaments that partic.i.p.ation was free when big companies did to promote themselves.
And Jake was right, that was the intention of the organization, to make the registration fee and the tournament would be an advertis.e.m.e.nt for the companies.
No one but Jake predicted that the prize would be very good and also because all the youngsters had a chance to win, that so many people would try to partic.i.p.ate, so Jake was surprised when he saw that he had several partic.i.p.ants.
With the almost 3000 youngsters Jake saw partic.i.p.ate and more that will come later, if everyone decides to partic.i.p.ate in the 4 compet.i.tions and having only one court, the tournament would last more than a month until a winner was decided.
When the organizers realize that they have tried to create ideas to have fewer people partic.i.p.ating, if they only decide to have a last minute limit, several people will complain that the tournament was armed, so someone greedy from the company must have had the idea of charging $ 10 registration so fewer people could attend and they could still have some money invested back and maybe even make a profit.
What this person should not have thought is that if they did this the idea of doing an advertis.e.m.e.nt for the school and the radio would have the opposite effect, that would undermine the name of the companies because they did not warn in advance that would have a registration fee.
So Jake was thinking that there would never be another tournament like this, of course with the situation with this and the pressure to have a solution for the tournament to be completed today, companies would not think about the future now.
Even after people complained for a long time, it was still decided that those who wanted to partic.i.p.ate would have to pay 10 dollars, many people became angry and left, and very young people who still wanted to partic.i.p.ate also could not get the last minute money too they"re gone.
And the few people who wanted to partic.i.p.ate yet and also had the money in place went to make the inscriptions, of course very few people had the money and confidence to partic.i.p.ate in various compet.i.tions like Jake.
So Jake made his entry to partic.i.p.ate in three compet.i.tions, when many saw this, realized that Jake was young and disdained him for wanting to partic.i.p.ate in various compet.i.tions despite having to pay 30 dollars.
Of course Jake could not bother with these people, he went to the place his mother was and waited with her for the first compet.i.tion to begin.
So with just 10 minutes to start the compet.i.tions the registrations were closed.
The first compet.i.tion of the day would be Free Throw, this was a compet.i.tion that was not seen in many places, but as this tournament was for young people up to 15 years of age, Free Throw is a skill that every player of any position had to have after all everyone could suffer faults in a game.
And according to the view of the compet.i.tors, because they are very young, many people would find it hard to hit several pitches.
The rules were that each person would have to make 10 pitches on their first chance, 10 seconds of time to make each throw, those who got more than 5 hits would pa.s.s the next round, so until they had to hit 10 of 10 pitches, no one else thought that would come so far.
Just over 200 people still paid the $ 10 to sign up for this compet.i.tion, so they would have to make the draw, the organizers had to prepare more than 200 papers with a number in each to decide the order based on the fate of each.
Jake was the tenth to draw and got the number 223 that was the last one that had to hurl, "lucky" Jake thought.
He always forgot that he had a 99 attribute for that, Jake wanted to be the last one to know how many b.a.l.l.s he had to hit so he could pa.s.s and win, after all, he could hit 9 in 10 pitches if he was lucky.
So the compet.i.tion of pitches began, people of all ages were there and tried to make their pitches, despite giving to know that some were younger and others were older only the organizers knew the exact age of them, when it was coming the turn of Jake make his pitches, only a little more than 50 people of more than 200 managed to hit the 5 pitches to pa.s.s the next stage.
The one who had hit the most, he had gotten seven shots out of 10 and it was clear that he was lucky for the happiness he was showing, these people who managed to appear to be 15 years old by his height and had some training in basketball.
So Jake hit 6 shots of 7 and then purposely missed the other 3.
It seemed that as the system said nervousness even affect the hit rate of the pitches, he did not miss one in 7 because he wanted to, he wanted to hit 6 and then miss the rest do not show.
After that Jake received a lot of applause because he was one of the only ones to hit 6 shots and then Jake went to his mother who was smiling and applauding a lot, I could see that she was proud and happy.
Then in the second round of pitches everyone had to hit 6 of 10 to move on to the next round, so only 13 hit 6 throws and no one hit 7, when it was Jake"s turn he hit the 6 in a row and missed 4 on purpose, still the audience applauded more excitedly, Jake was the only one who seemed to be the youngest of all 14 finalists, the other 13 seemed to be around 14 and 15 years old.
Now came the round that could be the final, taking out a n.o.body had hit 7 pitches, so it was difficult to have the next round, whether hit 7 went.
This time the luck did not seem to smile for the young man who had hit 7 the first time, and none of the 13 hit the 7 b.a.l.l.s too, some hit only 5, and when it came to Jake, the radio narrator began to show all compet.i.tors of that round before their pitches, only 2 of the 13 were 14 years old and the other 11 were 15 years old.
When the narrator introduced Jake, he said he was only 11 years old, 3 less than the youngest of the others, and now Jake had the chance to win, everyone in the crowd cheered and whistled for Jake, after all, it"s cool to cheer for the person who seems to be at a disadvantage.
So Jake went to the Free Throw, he knew he was going to win now, and so he was much more anxious and nervous, this would be the first time Jake had ever won anything in his life, it would be his first basketball trophy after his more than a year of training, had many people cheering for him now and also his mother, he wanted to leave Eva proud and also prove to her that he had talent, that he knew what he was saying when he talked about being a basketball player.
He made his first pitch and missed, he was very anxious and ended up putting a lot of strength and hit the back of the rim, then he made his second pitch, this time he hit, Jake was calmer now.
The crowd seemed to be throwing him, when he missed they lamented and when he hit they celebrated, although Jake was in the final and hit twice 6 shots, no one in the crowd did not even think Eva was going to win.
He was only 11 years old and was 3 years younger than everyone else, everyone thought that Jake had only been lucky so far he had some skill, so ale made the third pitch and missed again, everyone complained and thought it was over and he would have than having another round.
So Jake made the fourth pitch and hit it, everyone celebrated, Jake was sweating through his whole body of nervousness, this must be the worst time Jake was throwing, he was getting more and more nervous at the thought that this time he would not win.
Jake made the fifth pitch and hit again, it seemed he had found the right way, so he made the sixth and then the seventh and hit the two.
Now Jake had hit 5 and wrong 2, he was 3 and he had a real chance to hit 2 more and win the prize.
The crowd became more anxious and Jake hit the eighth also, now he had already hit six and had two more chances to hit one, he really could win.
The crowd got more excited and Jake more nervous, 10 seconds to throw before were enough more now seemed few, he threw the ball with his hands shaking and missed the ninth pitch.
Everyone regretted, it seemed that he was not going to win, that pitch was too bad, Eve started to gnaw her nails,
So Jake became even more nervous and forced his mind to calm down, confidence in his ability he had he just needed to calm down and win in that last pitch.
Now it seemed that his high intelligence and the side effect of his training imagined were working, he was calming down by force, his body was more nervous his mind was clear, so he threw himself if he said pitch, everyone looked to see if he was going to win or do not.
And the ball came in, Jake had won with a dramatic end that was unnecessary to him, he had more skill than that, the good thing is that now he understood what the system said that the pressure affected the accuracy, if in a children"s game already that"s how the NBA thinks.
When Jake went to his mother Eva ran and hugged him, she was crying with happiness, all the audience was standing applauding it seemed that they had gotten more involved than Jake thought, it was cool to see a young man in adversity doing incredible things.
And so Jake"s first compet.i.tion was over.