Hooping it up with the North Kitsap Vikings

POULSBO — North Kitsap Vikings boys basketball coach Tony Chisholm said it never happened before.

For the first time in the recent history of the Vikings basketball program, the North Kitsap Herald sports reporter hit the hardwood with the varsity and jayvee squads.

On Nov. 16. I decided to lace up my archaic 3-year-old Air Jordans for a two hour practice session with the Vikes.

“We’ve never had a reporter come out for practice,” Chisholm said. “You are the first reporter ever to do this that I know of.”

Chisholm was excited to see the local sports writer was willing to go through a practice session, albeit one that came near my last day on the job.

“It’s classic. This will go down in history,” Chisholm said with a smile.

At the beginning of practice I thought I was history. After a 15-minute warmup, my feet and knees were already aching.

As we went through the full-court layup lines the fatigue began to set in faster than I could eat a cheeseburger. During various points of this full sprint workout, I waved many a Vikings players ahead of me in the line so I could catch my breath.

During the half-court scrimmage portion of practice Chisholm delegated me to his forte, the defensive side of the ball.

I played various positions on defense while the Vikings ran through their offensive sets and plays. This was the hardest part of practice. It seemed like the Vikings were setting screen after screen after screen. I felt like a rabbit running around the gambit of screens the Vikings put forth.

This tired me out as sweat oozed out of my pores. It was then when I posed a question to Vikings junior Kevin Stringer at about 4:45 p.m. (practice began at 3 p.m.)

“So what’s next?” I asked.

Stringer replied a full court scrimmage and conditioning.

That’s when I decided that practice was over for me.

I headed for the locker room and hit the showers.

When I came back onto the court at about 5 p.m., Chisholm still had his players going through a myriad of practice drills and conditioning exercises. He wanted to know where I went.

“Practice wasn’t over yet,” he said. “I was wondering what happened to you.”

Despite my early departure from the Vikings’ fifth day of practice, Chisholm gave me credit for putting myself through a workout with his team.

“You hustled the whole time and had a pretty good shot,” he said. “You hung tough.”

Vikings senior Jordan Coover said he was surprised to see me take the court when practice kicked off.

“I’ve never seen a writer practice with our team. No one has ever wanted to practice with us,” he said. “I thought you did a good job. You hustled and didn’t give up. It has to be hard work playing with high school players who are all in shape.”

It truly was a learning and exhausting experience.

But you know what….

I would do it again!

Shaun Scott is now the sports editor at the Puyallup Herald.

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