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i had a friend who started a basketball team a few years back.

he loved to play, was always on the courts after school and now, after work, and he was happily trying to recruit people into the team so that he could share his passion with more people.

things were great in the beginning. he had many people coming to tryout for the team and he was introducing many people to a new sport they never thought of picking up before. All was good for him and for the team.

slowly, he thought of joining the inter-constituency competition. he was competitive to start with, but he knew he needed time to let people feel the competitive spirit so he waited till now before he mooted the idea to the them. i guess they were pretty supportive as well though things had to change. there were more practices, he became stricter and more uptight sometimes. sometimes people even thought he was overbearing and irritating. slowly, cracks started appearing in the team, and for some reasons i didnt know of, the team broke up.

he re-grouped everyone and started a new team some months down. starting from zero again must have been exhausting both mentally and physically for him but i guess no one in the team saw that cos they all thought he was doing it very willingly anyway. it was a good thing that this team did work out. they even went on to do very well at a couple of national competitions. to everyone, that was the hard work of the team, no one bothered to thank him, to tell him he did a good job of bringing the team thus far, to give him some recognition. granted, basketball is a team sport and he is nothing without the rest of his players, but no one bothered cos it was too easy to overlook that.

new rules, new regulations, new policies, new positions... i guess his players must have been tired too - after a while, these players became firm friends and all they wanted to do was to enjoy shooting hoops weekly, without the tiresome bureaucracy and the incessant nagging. i guess he made many wrong moves too, some which even i couldnt understand and agree with, as much as he tried to explain them to me. i guess it was easy for everyone to pin the blame on him just because he was the common enemy. it was easy cos he didn't understand what they wanted and it was even easier for everyone to mistake his commitment for tyranny and his passion for a fear of losing.

but alas, his players were human, and he was human too. he's tired now. and i cant help but to say something, not in his defence, but as a reflection of my feelings.

all humans need to be appreciated. all humans need to live on hope. but if we cant even give that to someone else, if we cant be bothered to see through our forgone conclusions about someone... then maybe we're really just human in the end. and as humans, we make mistakes we refuse to admit. in the end, who's to say who was right or wrong?

my friend's tired now. i think i can understand why... even though no one's at fault, everyone's at fault too?

dated - 16/12/07

@ 12:34 PM

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