Unity Games 2018

Last year, I wrote about how Ethan was called in to play CWS basketball and enjoyed it a lot.

Yeah, that's me. Flying high for the rebound.
I didn't get it. I tapped the ball out-of-bounds.

For most of this year, this has been the one thing that he is most excited about - being to play basketball again in the Unity Games. We have been practicing for this - going to parks most weekends so he can learn how to dribble and shoot and drive.

I even had to buy him proper basketball shoes, his first ever, to make sure he's safe on the hardwood floor. I was gonna buy him a generic kids shoes but I didn't realise his feet are already big. And like me, he is also flat-footed so he cannot just get any shoes. It had to conform to his foot shape or he will get cramping pain. The one we found was a 8.5-size 2018 Nike Kylie Irving Flytrap signature. It wasn't cheap (grrrr!), but it was the only one that fit.


On the day, we arrived early in the venue and Ethan immediately looked for his teammates. They were first game of the day, which they won by a huge margin. They won the next 2 games after as well, but lost in a tightly-contested finals. Their opponent won on a last second layup. A heartbreaker, but it was all in the spirit of fun and brotherhood, so the kids were alright after a brief moment of silence. They all played social games with and against the other teams after the tournament.

Erin wanted to play too, so we let her. She subbed in twice and both times she got bumped, fell down, and cried. We'd pull her out but she's ask to play again. Silly!

On our part, my Buklod team also fared well. Better than expected, to be honest. We ended up going to the finals but lost to the eventual champions.