If someone paid me for every time someone has looked at me and said “you’ll laugh about this one day” after I have done something embarrassing, let’s just say I wouldn’t have had to take out any loans for school.

For those of you that want to forego this story and get to the “main message” of this blog post, here it is. Laugh about it. I am not saying to take everything as a joke, but there is humor in a lot of situations. Find it, and it might just become bearable. For those of you interested in hearing at least one of my embarrassing stories, keep reading.

Let me set the scene for you. It is winter of my freshman year of high school, which means. . . it’s basketball season. I lived for basketball season. I loved basketball and had been playing pretty much since I could walk. I think it’s important to note, I am from a very small county where everyone knows everyone, and rivalry runs deep. Every year the four schools, come together for the County Basketball tournament. This tournament was a two day event. The first night there were two games; each of the four teams played one. The winner of each game would then play the next night in the County Championship. The whole town showed out for these two nights. I’m talking packed house, get there an hour early to find a seat type of thing.

It is night one. The gym is packed, cheer block is loud, and every men’s basketball team in the county had also showed up to support their women’s program. I was a Nervous Nelly. Remember this is my freshman year of high school, and this was a varsity tournament. I was fortunate enough to make the varsity team as a freshman, and had played many varsity games earlier in the season, but this night was different.

I had recently decided to start playing AAU (travel basketball), and an interested coach wanted to stop in to see me play before I was added to the team. Of course he chose one of the biggest games of the season to watch me play. To top it all off, the game was also being filmed on television. Camera crews, fans, loud cheer blocks, and what seemed like the whole county was there to watch. If you guys haven’t gotten the gist yet, this was a big night.

It is the third quarter with about 3 minutes left. We are up by 3, it has been an exhaustingly close game all night. We foul a girl on the opposing team and send her to the free throw line. I am a small forward, so I am on the lower block, ready to box out after the ball leaves the shooter’s hand. Referee hands the player the ball, she does her routine, and as soon as that ball leaves her hand, I get the offensive player behind me out of the way, go up get the rebound, shoot it, and make it. Yep. You read that right. I shot it. . . while on defense. . . at the free throw line. . . for the other team. . . in front of a coach I was trying to impress. . . and my entire county. . . on television.

Game play halts, and the gym goes quiet with confusion. There I am. . . mortified. I run to my coach, face red as a tomato with the expectation to be benched the rest of the night, and this man busts out laughing. His laughter cues the rest of the gym to start laughing, and I am still standing there, wildly embarrassed. He pats me on the back, says “you’ll laugh about this one day, now get back out there.” In that moment I was sure I would never laugh about that. Because I am sure not many of you know what happens in this sort of situation, I’ll explain it. Basket counts, it goes to whoever was closest when I shot it, and then we get the ball on offense.

To make matters worse, we ended up having to go into overtime, all because I scored for the other team. Thank goodness, we won the game by 2 points, but wow was that an embarrassing night for me. If any of you don’t believe me, it is recorded forever. . .as it was televised.

After the game I approached the AAU coach to apologize for my momentary lack of focus and assure him that it would never happen again. He too was a man of humor and simply responded “I sure hope not!” I made the team.

About a few months later, I finally had worked passed the embarrassment and decided to watch the recording of that night that my parents had kept on their television. I think the best part of the entire situation was the sports announcer’s commentary on the whole situation. It went a little something like “and McHugh has just scored for the other team! Wow . . . this is an interesting turn of events. It happens to the best of us though. . . well no it doesn’t, but it will be interesting to see how the Lady Eagles work out of this one.”

So, there it is. One of my many embarrassing stories. Let me tell you, I love this story. It is freaking hilarious. While that embarrassment is around forever, thanks to the news station covering that game, I choose to laugh about it. It can take some time to take a step back and laugh about your embarrassing moments, but hey, we are all human. This stuff happens. Laugh, move on, and use it as a fun story to make friends. I don’t know, but don’t dwell.