You may think there isn’t much going on beyond academics at LSE. After all, it is a pretty small school, with give-or-take 8,000 students total, and the campus is tiny. Athletic facilities are nearly non-existent, except for the so-called ’sports hall’ in the Old Building basement with a pathetic basketball hoop and the basic gym in the East Building (which I actually don’t mind at all). There isn’t really much space for ‘hanging out’ and sitting around on the LSE campus, and hopefully this will be slightly ameliorated next year when they open the New Academic Building (when I’m not here anymore!).
But, despite the ‘pathetic’ basketball court at LSE, it has a basketball team. I joined the team in October during the Athletic Union day, and it may have been one of the best decisions I’ve made at LSE. Being made co-captain subsequently was nice, but what was more awesome and important was that I met a really fabulous group of girls - like-minded, fun, talented, and smart. In fact, we may have been a little too smart at times, analyzing certain basic basketball rules and the sheer nature of the game, but that was really what made it almost new for me. Indeed, I was used to playing the game with people who knew the game in and out, and I was also used to coaching a group who had no idea what the game was about. My team was an interesting mixture of people with a wide range of skills and capabilities - from the highly experienced to the not-so-experienced - but all so smart that it didn’t take much to explain the basics. Explaining the subtleties, however, was a very different task I had not encountered before.
The LSE Women’s Basketball team had, overall, a fairly impressive season record. We were entered into two different leagues: the BUSA and the ULU. We ended in the third seat for the BUSA league, and second in the ULU. But again, it wasn’t so much the game record I was concerned about (although admittedly, winning is nice); the entire team improved substantially over the course of the season, and our second-to-last game against the University of Bedfordshire (1st seat in BUSA), in which we played put up a huge fight (despite physical disadvantages!), stood as solid proof.
There are a few colleagues with whom I’ve become close over the school year. But the girls I met on the basketball team have probably been the most significant and most memorable. Yes, the facilities could be improved, but that would have merely been a bonus. The team gave me a good reason to meet people across departments as well as programmes (we were 50% postgrad and 50% undergrad) - and I’m so glad I took advantage of it!
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