In John Edgar Wideman’s essay, First Shot, Wideman reflects on his childhood and uses the day he took his first basketball shot as a way to describe the way he tested the limits as a young boy. Growing up in Pittsburg, Wideman was restricted to a certain area outside where he could play and still be in the sight of his grandma. The day that Wideman describes throughout the writing is when he left that specific area to try new things and see what he could get away with. The essay is much more than just the first basketball shot Wideman took, it is about his relationship and understanding of rules.
Wideman knew the rules that were in place for him growing up, but he learned how to bend them at a young age. Young children learn how to break or bend rules by not abiding by them to see what they can get away with. As an adult, Wideman feels this is how kids learn and grow up to have the characters they possess. If people did exactly what they were told all the time, then people would never figure out what they are truly capable of achieving. This proved true for Wideman because he grew up with the negative stereotypes that surrounded African Americans at the time, and he was able to still go to the University of Pittsburg and play on the basketball team. If he would of listened to everyone that told him he couldn’t do it then he never would have reached his potential. Not only did he play on the team but his teammates voted him as a captain as well. Wideman never wrote this essay to only describe his first shot, but also to explain how bending the rules in the right way can lead to millions of possibilites.
