By: Jin Huang

Since I tore my thumb’s ligament during the UT Austin Summer Team Camp with my

high school basketball team, my summer had been cluttered. I have to sit out of my AAU team’s

schedule, and I can’t be in the pool even on a Texas ‘cooking’ hot day. Camps that I previously

signed up for turned into torture because it was hard to participate with only one useful hand.

After all the unpleasant experiences in summer camps, I thought the basketball shooting

the camp was going to be even worse as I’m obviously not Hansel Emmanuel, and I NEED two

hands to do my ‘magic’ on the court.

The next day, I stumbled into the gym and decided to just sit there and just get through

that morning. I even convinced my mom the night before the camp to pick me up early.

However, that morning did not just fly by. The coach found something I could work on with just

my left hand and said, “After this camp and you get off your cast, you will be a left-hand pro.

You won’t need to worry about getting pressed anymore, cause your left and right hand works the

same.” I participated in all the conditioning and workouts that don’t involve using both hands. I

made lots of new friends and improved my own skill set. I also met my former teammate and got

a lot better together with her.

This was the first time that the camp actually had something for me to do instead of just

letting me sit aside, so when my mom called me, I told her that I would like to stay for the rest of

the camp day.