The Holidays: A Hooper’s Perspective on Missing Home

Most people picture the holidays as a break, sleeping in, family gatherings, food, and time to just be home. But for high school basketball players, the holiday season looks nothing like a break. Instead of lazy mornings, there are early lifts. Instead of family dinners, there are tournaments. Instead of vacations, there are long bus rides to gyms an hour or several hours away.

While classmates are taking trips, hanging out with friends, or staying up late doing nothing, high school athletes are spending their holidays in crowded gyms, on hardwood floors, and under bright lights that never turn off.

Break? What Break?

Winter break doesn’t mean time off. It means two-a-days, holiday tournaments, and coaches reminding you that “championships are won in December.”

It’s waking up before the sun on days when you’d normally sleep until noon. It’s packing meals in plastic containers and heating them in school microwaves because you’re running from practice straight to a shootaround. It’s saying no to plans because you’ve got a game the next morning.

And sometimes, it’s getting home from a tournament at 11 p.m. on Christmas week, exhausted but knowing you’ll be right back in the gym the next day.

Missing Out

Most high school players don’t talk about it, but missing the holidays hurts.

You miss:

• Family traditions
• Movie nights
• Holiday shopping with siblings
• Big family dinners
• The simple comfort of being around the people you love

It hits hardest when you’re scrolling through your phone after a game, seeing your friends posting photos at parties or family gatherings, and you realize you’re spending your holiday in sweaty gear and a locker room that smells like Gatorade and hard work.

The Team Becomes Your Holiday Crew

Even though you’re missing time at home, being with your teammates softens the blow. Somewhere between the warmups, the bus rides, the locker-room jokes, and the shared “we’re tired but we’re grinding” looks, the team becomes its own kind of family.

You celebrate the small things together, tournament wins, post-game meals, the relief of finishing conditioning. You make inside jokes only people who were in the gym on December 27th at 8 a.m. will ever understand.

Your teammates get it. They’re missing home too.

Why It’s Worth It

Being a high school hooper means making sacrifices most people your age don’t have to make. But behind those sacrifices are dreams bigger than any holiday break.

You train through the holidays because:

• You want to get better
• You want to win
• You want to make your family proud
• You want to prove something to yourself

And you know that the memories you’re creating on the court, the close games, the late-night bus rides, the tournaments where you played out of your mind will stay with you long after the holidays are over.

A Different Kind of Holiday Memory

For high school basketball players, the holidays aren’t a break, they're the grind. They’re a test of commitment and passion. They’re a reminder that chasing something bigger comes with a cost.

But one day, when the seasons are over and the shoes are hung up, players look back on those holiday tournaments, those long practices, those moments of sacrifice and realize they were part of a story worth telling.

A story about dedication. A story about growth. A story about loving the game enough to give something up for it. In the end it is always worth it so keep going and keep grinding. Most importantly be sure to train hard, train smart, and train with purpose!