Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Diary Of A Baller: Otis "The General" Livingston (NJ Got Game) Entry #8


What’s happening everybody? This is “ The General” with another hectic week.

Monday I had a lot of homework so when I got home I did that first. I had to get it done early because later that night I had tryouts for the middle school basketball team. We have a good squad. We haven’t lost a game in 2 years and are back-to-back champions. We have 6 AAU players, Austin Goodluck and Omari Dill-Pettiford of St. Michaels, Azzur Taylor of F.A.C.E.S, Michael Runcie of K.S.K., and Nile Godfrey of the NJ Pirates. We also have some good players that don’t play AAU. We hope to win it again this year but we know we have to keep working cause teams want to break our streak. Not happenin’! LOL

Tuesday I had tons of homework and a project to work on for Language Arts. This project counts for two test grades so I have to do well on that. I made time to do some pushups, sit-ups, toe raises, and lunges. I have to get stronger so I can take the bangin’ and holding that guys do.

Wednesday was the second day of tryouts for my school team. We did some drills and scrimmaged for the rest of the time. I can’t wait until the season starts. I think our first game is against our cross town rival Maplewood. My man Anthony Starzynski plays for them so it should be fun.

Thursday we played 14u F.A.C.E.S in the Zoo Crew league. They’re always tough to play. It was weird playing against my former teammates Ahmad Harrison and Trey Lowe. I played with Ahmad the last 3 seasons and Trey last year at NJ Got Game. All the best to them and I miss them. I played OK I just couldn’t find my scoring rhythm so I had to do the little things to help us win. I had a bunch of assists, and hit 2 free throws at the end to increase our lead. They hit a three at the buzzer to put it into overtime. We ended up pulling it out and winning by one. Shout out to Owen McLeod for hitting a big jumper for us. It was an exciting game and the crowd was really into it.

I was disappointed in how I played personally so I spent all of my Friday after school at The Baird Center working on shooting and dribbling. I was there from 3 o’clock to 8 o’clock. I would’ve stayed longer but they turned off the lights.

On Saturday we had practice. Coach Pete talked to us about the game. He said the best part about it is we have room for improvement and we won the game. We did some drills, and scrimmaged a little at the end. I know the team was disappointed so we went hard and the energy level was high. We’re going to bounce back from the game and keep going at it. After practice I went to watch my brother’s practice at St. Michaels. I jumped in on some of the drills and scrimmaged with them. J.R Lynch was there so we went at it hard. I like playing against him cause he plays hard all the time.

Sunday was Halloween. We don’t celebrate it so I just stayed home with my family. My sister was home for the weekend from college so I just hung out with her and watched my Miami Dolphins win against the Bengals. That night we bought a lot of candy and rented G.I Joe. After a busy week it was cool to just relax.

Holla at ya next week,
Otis “ The General Livingston Jr