As the ball tips on to your teams side of the court, your anxiety reaches its apex. All the blood in your body initiates flowing at a fast rate as your head gets further into the game. The ball is in your hands and the game intensity has been fully reached. The ball is released from the tips of your fingers and the sound of the net being thrashed reaches your eardrums. The vital muscles in your body throb but you must proceed. You assume the game has reached its end but for the opponent, the game has just commenced.

Basketball is a significantly great sport because of the great effects on peoples health, motivation, and teamwork. Basketball should and can be played by any individual and should be part of the middle school physical education curriculum in every middle school in the country.

Basketball, when played regularly, builds up muscle and endurance, making the heart and other parts of the body stronger. After many studies, basketball has been proven to assist in muscle and endurance development. The high amounts of jumping when rebounding and shooting helps improve a lot of upper and lower body muscle. This muscle built from extensive play continues to help in your basketball performance. The average basketball game (about 1 hour of basketball) can burn 700 or more calories building an intensive amount of endurance (Better Health). 700 calories is about two average satisfying meals. Being muscular and having endurance doesn’t only help out in basketball performance, but it can also assist in other sports. The muscles built from playing basketball, benefits in balance, reducing your risk of falling (Health Magazine). This balance keeps you from falling down in games but really has an effect in anything. From basketball to gym class, balance is very important. Built up muscle and endurance benefits the human body. High amounts of intense running develops high cardiovascular endurance making it easier to run long distances for long periods of time and helps strengthen your heart (Health Magazine). After building muscle and endurance, it is much easier to burn calories and fat (Health Magazine). If you don’t have a lot of muscle and endurance to start, it is much more difficult to burn fat. The average basketball game allows you to train and support nearly every muscle in your body. The intense jumping and landing on the ground also forms stronger bones, making them harder to break. Muscles and endurance aren’t only needed in the game of basketball, but also are needed and used in other fun sport activities. When having these health benefits, more benefits will approach. Just by having upper and lower body muscle and endurance, human beings are benefitted throughout their whole entire body.

The power of teamwork and unity increases the amount of participation and focus presented by individuals in other situations. Basketball not only provides you with benefits to muscle and endurance, but also provides you with benefits in other activities. Many recent studies have proven that teamwork can make a team in any sport a lot better. Division 1 players and coaches of basketball teams claimed that teamwork is needed to win (NBC Camps). Many other coaches interviewed by NBC Camps also claimed that leadership is the essential element of teamwork (NBC Camps). Many believe that this is true because of many basketball teams in any basketball league that were able to succeed with teamwork. An example of teamwork in basketball would be Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls. You might think that any NBA team is capable of doing what the Chicago Bulls did in their prime years but that isn’t the case. Many people believe that the back to back NBA Championships was only because of Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan was a great player, but without the teamwork that Michael Jordan created, his team wouldn’t have succeeded. The starting lineup that he mostly succeeded with was the lineup of Steve Kerr, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Toni Kukoc, and himself (ESPN). The Chicago Bulls were so robust and played so well as a team that they set the NBA record for best regular season record of all time and ended up winning the NBA Championship in the 1995-1996 Season (Wikipedia). The Bulls ended with 72 wins and only 10 losses. The Chicago Bulls won nearly 88% of their games and lost nearly 12%. The competence of teamwork can really spark the main focus in other situations besides basketball. An example would be during a group project at school. One person could take over the whole entire project, but the chances of succeeding are very low because everybody is depending on one person to succeed for them. When one person is doing all of the work in any situation, there's more worry and stress from their teammates who wonder how the situation is going to turn out. However, when there is teamwork everybody is involved and there's less stress knowing that you don’t have to do everything on your own and that you have other team members that can help in the succession of the whole group.

The exuberant sport of basketball does impart major health benefits but can also cause bad and agonizing injuries. Over the past several years in the United States, youth and professional basketball injuries have been very recurrent. Many unsafe cases have occurred making basketball seem like a poor sport lacking in safety. Yearly, more than 375,000 boys and girls suffer severe basketball injuries that require visits to emergency rooms (WebMD). That is more than half the population of the state of Vermont (Wikipedia)! Severe injuries that require emergency room visits are much more common to occur then injures such as sprains or strains. Between the years of 1997-2007, only about 30% of all of the injuries that occurred were sprains or strains (WebMD). This means that about 70% of the injuries that occurred were dealt with in the emergency room. Not only did that occur but the percentage of traumatic brain injuries increased by about 70% between the years of 1997-2007 (WebMD). These injuries varied for each gender. Over those years, boys were more likely to sustain cuts, fractures, or dislocations being different from girls who were more likely to sustain traumatic brain injuries, as well as injuries to the knee (WebMD). During this period, girls seemed to be more injury prone than boys were. Even though basketball seems like a horrific sport, it still provides players to receive health benefits. Basketball is a metabolic conditioning sport that allows people to work their muscles and burn calories and allows people to have fun with a little bit of competitiveness. If basketball is such a bad and unsafe sport then why do more than 26 million people in the United States play competitive basketball (SGMA's U.S. Trends in Team Sports research)?

Basketball is a great sport with many benefits and should be added to the middle school physical education curriculum. Over the past couple of years in middle school, I have noticed that basketball isn’t part of the main physical education curriculum such as gymnastics, badminton, or soccer and if it is, it is only for a short period of time. Many others and I believe that this is wrong. Why wouldn’t a sport that helps peoples heart be in the physical education curriculum? Isn’t physical education a class where students get to exercise and benefit their muscles and bones? If school gym teachers believed this then basketball would be added to the middle school physical education curriculum. Think of a time in your life that you’ve walked into a middle school and not seen a gymnasium with basketball hoops. Many others and I know that we have never seen this before especially in the United States. Even poor schools around the country have a gymnasium meant for basketball. This indicates that typical middle schools around the country have the opportunity to add basketball to their middle school curriculum. With little amounts of materials, nearly any middle school in the country can include the fun sport of basketball in their middle school physical education curriculum. All that is needed to play the sport of basketball is a hoop, a pair of sneakers, and a basketball. Basketball is a very affordable sport considering that only a few materials are needed for play. Basketball is one of the cheapest sports that can be played especially in gym class compared to a sport like soccer or football where much more gear is needed. Basketball is a low expense sport that should be played in every middle school in the country because nearly everyone of these middle schools could afford having the sport especially because almost all of the schools have a gymnasium. Basketball, being a low expense for schools and having great benefits to student’s health should most definitely be added to every average middle school.

The stone heavy basketball is back in your hands. Basketball plays thrash in the back of your head. The last minute is beneath your feet. One mess up could cost you the whole entire game.

“Ohio State! Ohio State” , crys your teammate.

You get in your position and receive the ball. You are left with about 25 seconds and the game is at risk of a loss considering you are down by 1 point. You wait for the play to develop and decide to give up the ball. Your teammate gets wide open in the corner, a wide open three pointer. 5 seconds are left. The ball hits his hands and he shoots. You see the ball flying through the air not knowing its end. The ball strikes the thick rope material, and all of a sudden, the game is over.

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"Basketball Is My Favorite Sport." Basketball Is My Favorite Sport. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2015.

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"Basketball's Fitness Benefits a Sure Bet." Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health. N.p., 21 Mar. 2014. Web. 13 Feb. 2015.

"Teamwork: The Great Team Difference - NBC." Teamwork: The Great Team Difference - NBC. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2015.

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Hendrick, Bill. "Basketball Injuries Land Many Kids in ER." WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2015.