Ben Roy At Elevate Hoops
What’s up Basketball Spotlight World?
Welcome to week one, “Diary of a Baller,” for Ben Roy. First and foremost, I would like to give a special thanks to Mike Melton and bballspotlight for giving me the opportunity to share my weekly grind and what I do on a daily basis. My name is Ben Roy, and I’m from Spring Lake Heights, New Jersey. I am a 14 year old, 6’0 PG for Team Rio National (class of 2022). Ever since I could remember I have been playing basketball, and ever since I could remember… I fell in love with it.
Monday: Every Monday morning waking up is definitely an issue for me. I am always sore and run down, usually from the tournament we played over the weekend. But getting up this Monday morning was harder than usual. The past weekend my Team Rio crew and I headed out to Pittsburgh for the Hoop Group Pitt Jam Fest to play in our first NCAA Live period event. We competed up in the 15U bracket. We had a great showing going 3-1 on the weekend and losing a tough one in the semi-finals by 4 points to a good team from Ohio. My teammates and I battled the entire weekend and there wasn’t anything to be disappointed about. I felt I had a great showing especially in the quarter-final and semi-final games. It was long 6 hour ride home Sunday afternoon. And, on Monday, I had to go to school. The day felt longer than most school days felt; mostly because I had a ton of essays to do and tests to take. After school I went up to the park to get some shots up; mostly light stuff because I was so sore from the weekend. Later that night I did my daily push-ups and sit-ups and than I fell asleep.
Tuesday: I woke up Tuesday morning feeling pretty good. I was still a little sore from the weekend but I wanted to get some major work in. School seemed very light and layed back… it was probably because we had a lot of substitutes and didn’t do that much work. Although we weren’t doing much work, I was extremely eager to get out of school. I came home from school and was feeling good, so I went and worked out with the 16U NJ Shoreshots team. They’re team is filled with great coaches and great talent, they have a handful of division one kids on their team. We worked out for a solid 2 hours and it was great. Working out with them teaches me how to be more deceptive with my moves and causes me to really focus on attacking the rim with as much explosiveness that I can. After the workout, I got some pizza on the way home and put my feet up and watched the NBA playoffs. Later that night, I had to focus on school and finish my homework.
Wednesday: Wednesday morning I woke up and I was shot. My legs were dead along with the rest of my body. Although I was tired, I felt much better after I took a shower. My mom made me a big breakfast because my brother had standardized testing, but mine doesn’t start for a couple of weeks. School was easy, once again for some reason we had a lot of substitutes, and since there was standardized testing for lower grades, I didn’t have many classes. After school I headed to the Mike Rice workout at Hoop Group with a couple of my Team Rio teammates, Elijah and Philip. I have been working out with Mike Rice since fourth grade. His workouts are tough and he holds you accountable for every rep. A couple of the Rio 17U players also attended the workout. It was great, I got to go live with a few of them and felt I held my own against a couple of the top players in the class of 2019. After the workout my teammates and I got some food at a local barbecue place. Then, we headed up to the Ranney School for Rio practice. Some kids could not make it, so it turned out to be more like a workout, but it was great work. When it ended it was pretty late, and since I live about a half hour away from Ranney, by the time I got home and showered, I was out like a light.
Thursday: I woke up Thursday and was so tired. I was so sore because I workout out for about 4 hours the night before. When I got up, I felt my muscles were really tight and I needed to do some stretching. School wasn’t bad, it actually went quicker than normal for once. By the time I got out of school I was still sore and very tight. But although I was sore and tight, I felt like getting to the free throw line after school wouldn’t hurt. I felt like I needed to work on my free throws because out in Pittsburgh I more than I would have liked. I didn’t have any homework all week because the lower grades had standardized testing… and it was great not having any work after school. Thursday night I went to the local gym that is about 10 minutes from my house. At the gym, I see a trainer every so often and he gives me workouts that I can do on my own on a daily basis. I told my trainer that I was feeling very tight and sore, so he gave me some good stretches for if I was every feeling like this again. After I saw my trainer, I felt so much more loose and I felt really good. After I got home, I ate dinner, took a shower, and studied because I had a big science test that next morning. I then fell asleep right after I studied.
Friday: Friday’s is my favorite day by far, we don’t do much at school because everyone is just waiting for the weekend to come. I woke up Friday feeling great, it was probably because I did some really helpful stretches the night before. In the morning, I went to school and had my science test second period, it was easy because I prepared for it well enough to get a good grade on it. After school I decided to meet up with some of my friends and chill with them for the night. But before I went out, for about an hour and fifteen minutes I worked on pull-up jump shots and dribble moves to get myself open for shots. Later that night, I met up with a bunch of my friends and I had a good time. I haven’t seen them in a while so it was good to catch up with them. Since I had a tournament the next morning, as soon as I got home I went right to bed. I had to wake up early so I had to get to bed as soon as possible.
Saturday: I woke up around the same time that I usually wake up for school, around 7:00 or 7:15. Surprisingly, I wasn’t as tired as I thought I was gonna be because I was out the night before. I was so hyped to play, mostly because we were competing in another live period and we were playing up again. Also, we knew that if we played our game, we definitely should have a good showing. My first game in the morning was against an Adidas sponsored team out of Maryland.. We came out on fire, and I started off strong. I was finishing at the rim and hitting my jumpers. Towards the end of the first half I was going up for a floater and my body shifted weirdly, and when I landed, I felt a tweak in my lower back. I sat a lot in the second half. We ended winning by 25 points. Game two on Saturday was rough. I definitely was not feeling great physically, but I decided to try and play through it. On top of that, one of my teammates got sick between games and he couldn’t play the minutes he usually does. I tried to play through the pain, but was in and out of the game in the second half. We ended up losing by 4 points to a good team. I am super proud of my teammates for battling and stepping up to the challenge. After the games, I went home to relax and ice my back for the rest of the day.
Sunday: Since we lost on Saturday, we only had one game in the morning and then that was it. We played at 9:00 in the morning so once again I had to wake up early. My back wasn’t bothering me as much as the day before but I knew I still needed to stretch. We played DC Premier 15U, and they were a very good team. Once the game started, my back started to hurt right away. Although it was hurting, I still wanted to play the game out. Even though I didn’t mention that my back was hurting to anyone, you could tell I was in pain because I was a step slower than I normally am. Most of my shots were short because I wasn’t even able to bend down and get into my shot. But once again, my teammates stepped up big. Although we came up a little short in the game, we competed with a very solid team and there was nothing to be disappointed about. For the rest of the day I went home and really tried to focus on my lower back and stretch as much as possible and ice it. Thanks for tuning in for week one, see you guys next week.
Ben Roy signing off.
Follow me on IG: @benroy_
