Disclaimer: I don't own 7th Heaven or any of it's characters. I only own my OC's and my ideas.
Chapter 35
The Announcement
"Who did you have in mind?"
"Well," said Tonya. "My dad is a coach. He is one of the assistant coachs for the boys basketball team at my high school."
"Let me talk to my teammates. What does your dad teach?"
"Chemistry and Physics."
"This cannot just be coincidence."
"What do you mean?"
"Our school's chemistry teacher of 40 years just retired."
"I'll talk to my teammates."
"Don't you need to talk to the school?"
"We get to pick our choice, and then they make the final approval."
"I'll see if my dad is okay with it." She pulled out her cell and talked to her dad. "He is okay with it."
10 days later...
"Okay," said coach, at the end of practice. "I have made my decision on the eleven girls. I have yet to decide on starters or captains. When I call your name, you may come over by me. Here we go. Michelle Tatum." Michelle was a small forward. "Breanna Thomsten. Kayla Michaels." Slowly they made their way over. "Maggie Thomas. Susan Appleton. Naomi Brian. Tonya Hall." I silently cheered for my roommate. "Colleen Xavier. Hannah Tatum." Hannah was Michelle's faternal twin. "Nicky Masters. Whitney Brown. And finally," I crossed my fingers. "Savannah Kinkirk." I walked over.
"To the rest that did not make it, I'm sorry. You are all excellent players. I wish I could take all of you, but the games limit the number on the team to eleven. You are all great in my book. Practice is over. For those that made the team, you have tomorrow off. Mike has arranged for you to go on tours around the city. Now is the time to say your goodbyes." Coach went back to his office. I hugged a few of the girls that didn't make it.
"It was nice meeting you," I said to a lot of them. A lot of people exchanged numbers, e-mail address, mailing address. We may have been competing against each other, but we had all become good friends. All twenty of us got on the bus back to the hotel. Most of the nine girls who didn't make it were working on getting plane tickets. I went to my room and crashed. It had been another hard day at practice. "Congrats on making the team," I said to Tonya.
"You, too," she said. "Thanks for believing in me."
"You're very welcome." My cell rang. "Hello," I said.
"Savannah it is Tabetha. Tonya's dad is getting the job offer from the school district. They're going to call him today."
"I'll tell Tonya." I hung up the phone.
"That was one of my teammates. The school district is going to offer your dad the job."
"That's cool."
The Next Day...
We pulled up in front of the White House. We were actually going to go on a tour of the place. We had already been to the capital building, Washington and Lincoln Memorial. The tour went well. There were certain areas we weren't allowed to see, for obvious reasons, but it was fun, none the less. We arrived back at our hotel. Most of the team jumped into the pool. Some of the room assignments were rearranged, because of the loss of the nine players. Tonya was still my roommate.
Two weeks later...
"We will be arriving at our destination shortly. Flight attendants, please prepare for landing." We had caught a 10 PM EST flight. It was now approximately 5 PM Barcelona time. We landed, got off the plane and grabbed our bags, went through customs and then caught our ride to the hotel. The games didn't start till tomorrow. We had an afternoon game against Brazil. The tournament was simple, you lose twice and you are eliminated. The ten teams in the games this year are USA, Brazil, China, Australia, Germany, Canada, Argentina, Russia, England and Spain. Our team was picked to finish first or second to Germany. Tonya was my roomate again. We spent the evening, as a team wandering Barcelona.
The next day arrived quickly. We headed to the site of the opening cermonies. Our whole team was in our warm-ups. Our warm-ups were red, white and blue, obviously. "And there goes Team USA girls' basketball team," said one of the announcers outside. We made our way inside to where the athletes gathered. We found the other teams from the US and waited. We would march out as a country. We gathered around each other, all the teams.
"Who do you think should carry the flag?" asked the boys' track and field coach.
"What about Savannah?" said a male swimmer.
"Does anyone have any problems with that?" A few people seemed like they were going to object, but no one spoke out. "Very well," said coach Calvin. "Savannah, you will lead the whole group."
I was shocked. "I would be honored. I was grateful that for all the awards I had won, for all the things I had accomplished, even to represent my country. But nothing compared to this. To be chosen by the other US team members to not only lead the group into the stadium, but to do so carry our nation's flag.
"And the first country to be introduced, Japan. Carrying the flag for Japan is male swimmer..." He said the person's name.(A/N. I really don't know how to spell names in Japanese, so forgive me) "Japan has teams in 24 of the sports. Next up are the athletes from the United States of America." We marched out. "Holding the flag is the captain for the girls' basketball team, Savannah Kinkirk." The flag was huge, but I loved the fact that I was carrying it. "The US has teams in 25 sports." They went through the other countries. "That is all for the opening ceremonies. We would ask that all the flag holders pose for a picture briefly in the middle of the field." I headed there. They took a picture of us and then I went to join my team. Once I was done, the basketball team split up to do various things.
"Meet back here at 1," said coach. Our game is at 2. It was now 10 o'clock.
1:50 PM
"Captains to the middle," said one of the referees. I made my way to the middle. I shook hands with the referees, the other captain and the opposing coach. They went over a few things, and then I went back to my warm-ups.
"Welcome everyone," said the announcers, in various languages, "to this game between the US and Brazil." They gave the starting line-ups. We won the tip-off, and I took the ball up the court. I called the play, and about ten seconds later, hit an open jumper. By the end of the first quarter, the score was 20-14 in our favor. I had 8, 5, 2. At half time, we had more than doubled our lead. It was now 52-20. I had my triple double already. So including international play, it was to 23 games. We won the game, 73-40. I didn't play much in the second half, so other girls could get some playing time in. I finished with 20, 14, 12. So we were now 1-0. I shook hands with the girls from Brazil, and congratulated them on a good game.
The way it was set up, was you would play various countries. Once you lost twice, you were done. When only two teams remained, they would play in a one game championship. We stuck around and waited for the drawing of the next set of pairs. Our next opponent would Russia.
A/N. Please R&R. Hope you are enjoying. So Savannah was chosen to represent her country, team US won its first game, and the Hawks have a new coach.
Preview: More from Spain. Also, back in Florida.