Her World of Darkness and Pain

CHAPTER SEVEN
(Seventh grade)

Girls use verbal and emotional tactics to enforce bullying.

I was excited about the seventh grade just like all my other classmates. We had graduated from Greenlee and were officially at Ethel High School, which was seventh through twelfth grade. Seventh and eighth grade was considered junior high. Ninth through twelfth was high school. I got off the bus and felt like a different person. I was still ashamed of my body and had low self-esteem. I did not wear shorts too often from the second grade to the tenth grade. The only time I wore them was during basketball, softball, or track practice. I had on a short outfit the first day though. It was white with green and pink vertical stripes. 

The one thing I was the most excited about in terms of going to Ethel was playing basketball. It was the only thing, besides writing, that took my mind off all the bad things that were going on in my life. I was good at it too. Coach Isaiah Johnson, God rest his soul, was my coach. He had coached at the school for years. He knew an athlete could play or at least should have the potential based on their last name. During tryouts he asked, “Is your mom’s name Veronica?” I was scared and nervous, but I managed to swallow and say, “Yes sir.” He also named a few of my aunts and uncles on my dad side who played for him as well. He was a living legend. He coached the girls and boys team, both junior high and high school. He called me into his office one day and asked how I felt about playing on the high school team. I was excited and more honored than anything. Little did I know what I was about to face.
Most of the bullying I dealt with in the seventh grade came from the basketball team. I later on found out that one of the main reasons Coach Johnson moved me up was because most of his starters were on academic probation. They could not play a single game until after Christmas. The main two and leading scores were Lydia Franklin and DaShay Cash. 

DaShay was a forward. Actually, she played every position. She was just that good. Her skin complexion was caramel. She was very tall and skinny. She had long legs and long arms. She kept her hair cut short. One thing that always stuck out in terms of her appearance was the fact that she had dark eyebrows. She was quiet and kept to herself until she got on the court. 

Lydia was a shooting guard. She was a little taller than most of the girls. Her skin complexion was a pretty smooth brown. She was beautiful. She was very outgoing. Everyone loved being around her. The boys wanted to date her and the girls wanted to be her friend. She had a jerry curl. The top was short and the back was shaved nice and neat. She was a girly girl, but when it came time to play ball she hustled. She had a lot of curves on her body. They were Coach Johnson’s favorite players. They were also the ones who treated me so bad to the point where I lost interest in playing basketball. 

I was the first one to get to the locker room, but I would be the last one to get on the floor because I was ashamed of my body. I did not want the other girls to see me get dressed for fear they would laugh and talk about me just like everyone else did already. One day we were learning some new plays as well as defense. Coach Johnson was a defensive coach. We spent most of practice going over full court presses and zone defenses. On this particular day we were playing man to man, which I grew to despise because it was just too much running and movement. Those girls tortured me to death that day. 

We were running a simple box man to man formation. When the point guard brought the ball down the floor, the forwards screened down on the defender to free their teammate who was usually a guard. DaShay came down and screened me hard in my stomach and she held the screen longer than she was supposed to. My stomach and side was bruised up for at least a week!!! When we had a water break I heard her telling the rest of the team, “I’m killing Ketta with those screens.” 

From that moment on I did not play defense that well because I was scared to. I caught hell from Coach Johnson for years because of my lack of defense. I cried my eyes out in the locker room that day. Basketball practice was my last class of the day. When I got on the bus, I sat next to the window and cried all the way home. To make matters worse Lydia rode my bus and I heard her telling others how they tortured me. The only person on the team the following two years who was nice to me was Charlotte Copeland. She was a white girl who could shoot the lights out of the ball. She wore green contacts and had long blonde hair. Her body was shaped like that of a black girl.