by BREANA BACON
For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved the game of basketball. My father played in high school then became a coach after college, my younger brother was the star player on our street and my mother was the biggest Laker fan in the world. It seemed natural for me to love basketball because everyone around me loved it. The kids in my neighborhood would gather in my driveway a few times a week to play pickup and I’d play too, just because everyone else was doing it. Granted, I was never too skilled but that never stopped me from putting up a couple shots.
One thing I loved most about playing was that the guys on my block never told me I couldn’t play because I was a girl– and they didn’t take it easy on me because of that either. I grew up playing scrappy streetball with boys twice my size and about a billion times my level of talent. I got knocked around, heard a lot of trash talk and can’t count the number of my shots that were blocked into my neighbor’s driveway.
To me, there was no difference between men’s and women’s basketball. Of course, I knew there were different leagues for men and women, but other than that, I believed they were one and the same. Now, at 20 years old, I still believe there should be no difference, which is why I was outraged at the changes to the playing rules of NCAA Women’s basketball.
Pulsefeedz 