There are more than a million communities out there for people to be a part of. A community is a group of people who have the same interests or live nearby, according to Merriam-Weber Dictionary. A community that I am a part of is the Iowa Valley girls’ basketball team because it portrays certain qualities from Howard’s essay.
     ?Each good community has to have a chief according to the essay entitled In Search of the Good Family (Howard). For the basketball team our chief is Bowlin. Bowlin is our chief because he directs what we do. From delegating what we wear to school on game day to planning what we work on in practice each night. If anyone on the team has any questions dealing with basketball, they would go to Bowlin. Those are the reasons that make Bowlin the perfect fit to be the girls’ basketball teams chief.
     The next person a good community needs is a switchboard operator (Howard). For us, Anna Herrmann is the perfect fit to be the girls’ basketball team switchboard operator. I chose Anna because she is our team captain. Being a senior and starting varsity for many years, everyone can look up to her. She keeps track of us and makes sure were all doing the right thing on the court, even when the chief is not around. She is not just the role model on the court, Anna also would be the one that a teammate would go to if they have any questions about when practice is, and if anyone ever needed a ride to practice, Anna would be the one to go to.
     Anna might not portray sportsmanship the best, but as a team we can show sportsmanship great. All good communities also have hospitality (Howard). With hospitality for the girls basketball team comes sportsmanship. There is not one single person in this community who portrays it the most, we all portray hospitality equally. For example, the coaches shake hands with the other coaches and the referees, and even talk before the game. They really don’t have to do that, but it shows respect. Before the game, each team choses captains, our captains are Anna and Lily. The captains meet up with the opposing teams captains and at the end of their meeting the players shake hands and tell the other team good luck. During the game, we show good character by helping up a player from the opposing team when they have fallen down near you, sometimes even a pat on the back is done during that time. When the game is over, the players and coaches get in a line and shake hands. No losing team really wants to walk in a line and shake hands with the winning team, but they do it anyways to show great sportsmanship.
     When you show sportsmanship, you are also dealing with frustration. Good communities deal squarely with direness (Howard). In basketball you will run into disappointment. The dire situations are most likely from losses of  games. Everyone losses games, but dealing with it squarely just means that you move on from that loss and work twice as hard to keep teammates heads up and go out and win the next game. Another example of direness that has happened to the girls’ basketball team would be our chief getting kicked out of a game. That meant that Bowlin could not coach one of our games. The night of the game that Bowlin could not coach was different. The gym was the same, the locker room was the same, but the atmosphere was different. William, as the assistant coach, had to step up for the night and be the head coach. Normally during a game William is pretty quiet and doesn’t say much; he lets Bowlin do all of the talking. During the game that Bowlin wasn’t allowed to coach, William really stepped up to the plate;  he yelled a lot, and when I say a lot, I mean a lot. William coached differently too, for example during that game William hardly subbed, whereas Bowlin would have gotten more girls in off of the bench a little bit more. The turnout of the game was a win, so even not having our chief at the game we dealt with the direness and still pulled out a win.
     Even though Bowlin could not coach that game, all of our rituals were the same. Good communities prize their rituals (Howard). Within our basketball community, we have a lot of rituals. The ritual that stands out the most to me would be before every game in the locker room we listen to a speech. During the speech we're all sitting down, looking around at one another. Some of us, for example Lily, mouth the words to us. The speech motivates us to go out on the basketball floor and give it everything we got that night so that we do not let down our teammates. It sets the tone for the night. Another ritual that Bowlin has always done with us, is after we win five games in a row, we go over to Bowlin’s house after the game and have a pizza party. It is a fun time to bond with our teammates and coaches after completing a five win streak goal.
     Not only do we have rituals, but we show affection towards one another. Good communities are affectionate (Howard). To me, there is not one person who stands out as being affectionate; it is more of a team aspect. We all have each other’s backs with whatever we decide to do. If there is a death of one of our teammates’ relatives, we get a card that we all sign and we give them hugs, to show that we are there for them. Another time that the team is caring is after a big loss, where there are normally more than half of the girls crying. When our teammates start to cry, everyone comforts them. We go around from one another giving each other hugs, telling each other that is going to be okay and that we’re going to go out and get the next win. We also cry once the season is over. Once it gets into playoffs we have to win to keep playing, when we lose for the last time of the season, it really sucks knowing our season ended with a loss. That’s when every single girl on the team cries.
      Since we are so caring towards one another, we are comfortable and that is why we are comfortable in our gym. Good communities have a sense of place (Howard). The basketball teams’ sense of place would be the basketball court. Once one of us steps on the court we know it is go time. If one of us is having a day, shooting hoops could help. The basketball court is where all of us can go to get away from life. I feel that it is not like that with the other gyms in the SICL. I feel like Iowa Valleys’ coaching staff and teammates are the reason that we feel so comfortable to come shoot hoops to get away from life. I would only want to belong to the Iowa Valley girls’ basketball team, because our sense of place is the best sense of place for me.
     William has coached all of us girls since we were in third grade; he is also one of the reasons that we have such a good sense of place at the Iowa Valley gym. Good communities honor their elders (Howard). Now I am not saying that William is an elder, but he is the oldest coach. Growing up and learning basketball from William makes every single one of us girls honor him. William knows the game of basketball and his head “is not just a hat rack” as he would say. Now of course we girls honor Bowlin the same, it is just different with William.
     ?With over a million communities out there for me to be a part of, one of my favorite communities is the Iowa Valley girls’ basketball team. The basketball team is a community because it portrays certain qualities in Howard’s essay. The qualities that the team portrays are; having a chief who is in charge of what we do, having the switchboard operator who keeps us all on track, having good hospitality that we all portray through sportsmanship, dealing squarely with direness after a tough loss, keeping our rituals the same from year to year, being affectionate towards one another, having the Iowa Valley gym as our sense of place, and by honoring William as our elder. I am proud to call the Iowa Valley girls basketball team a community.