Dawg High School Application Report

One summer’s day in 2014, I borrowed my neighbor’s lawn mower and met my teammates at the batting cage. I began mowing down the weeds, while they raked. Others restretched the netting back across the top of the cage. By the time the afternoon came we had a batting cage and a real sense of pride. From that day forward, we began practicing every day, year round. We talked baseball, walked baseball, lived and breathed the stuff. We shared our equipment and made do with what we had. We turned ourselves from a rag-tag bunch of misfits into a

It all began on November 3, 2015 during my first middle school basketball tournament. The grey brick walls of the gymnasium looking more like a prison than a school. The school’s “Lincoln Park Elementary School” sign had graffiti and missed a couple letters from the name. The court was terribly small, but we began by playing the superb team of Jam on It. We were blown out and I headed back up to my mom and dad in the parent filled stands. The game wasn’t even fun to play and we looked like third graders playing them. I looked up to my parents as sad as could be.

In the words of Ricky Bobby, “If you ain’t first your last”(Talladega Nights, 2006), is a very common theme for most youth sports teams. In 2010 a local Cherry Creek Youth Sports football team in the 11-year-old division finished the season with a tough loss in the championship game. This loss was the first loss in 3 years and the first time this team ended the season without a championship trophy. This loss was tough to swallow, but it was also a time to celebrate the end of a great streak. It was the time for the coach and parents to rally around the kids and celebrate the season. Going 10-1 is a great feat, unless you are playing youth sports. Watching the coach verbally blame the kids and then ignore the players is sadly not uncommon. It was the kid’s fault they lost, it was a complete lack of effort and it was a waste of a season. In the weeks that followed the loss, the coach contacted several of the players and informed them that they will not be welcomed back to the team because the coach needed more talented players to compete and to win. Not once did the coach stop and think about the impact to the kids and the parents that were asked back to the

It was not until the age of 10 where my career really started to kick in and I did not take baseball for granted. It was a sport that I always liked to play. I always played every summer in a youth baseball league. It was a recreational league, but it is where I made some of my best friends. This league made it feel like we had no responsibilities and the social environment was one that I will never forget because being able to talk to others that understand what you mean is nice to have. When first starting that league my dad started coaching me up until I was eleven. Then he started taking the game to heart. We were still too young to fully understand that and he made a few kids cry and so the league banned him from coaching. So, my next year my grandpa took my dad’s spot and coached the team. There was always one rivalry we had. It was a team with almost all the older and best players in the league. Every year they went undefeated, except one. It was the finals game and it was a double

Floridas International League tried to recruit me in 1950, I had to decline because I thought it was a publicity stunt. I thought that they were trying to pull to bring in more fans and money.

Tidewater Titans baseball team was at its highest peak and we had been unstoppable. Coach Derrick, Coach Tony, Coach Perry, and Coach Darren had all led the team to multiple championships that year. Ever since the beginning, there had always been a problem with Coach Derrick. He had always thought his kid, Grayson was better than the rest. Grayson had taken my position at shortstop in my batting position and the line up. I was left to second base the second less likely place the ball could get hit too.

In November of 2014, my team and I made it past the first round of the LHSAA Division AAAA playoffs after defatting the number twenty-eight seed, Belle Chase High School. After finishing a very good regular season with a record of 10-2, we went into the playoffs surprising everyone as the number four seed. After the winning the first round in style, we found ourselves matched up with defending state champs from the season before. On this defending state champ team, they possessed some of the top defensive backs in the state of Louisiana. In this nail biter of game, my team and I would face adversity, nervousness, and discipline. We got on the rented charter bus, and began our trip down to the heart of New Orleans to play the East Jefferson Warriors in what would be a very exciting high school football game full of hard hits and upsets.

When playing sports at a young age, there is not a whole lot of organization. Often times it just looks like a bunch of kids running around aimlessly. At the age of 8, I decided to take my game and tryout for my first travel team. My first real baseball experience started in 2001 when I joined the Royalton Raptors, a local travel baseball team in my city.

My team only had six players available to play. We have nine kids on our roster. One of them broke their wrist during a game. Another kid had boyscouts. And a third kid was unavailable to make it to the game. My team, the Rhinos, were wearing blue, and the other team was wearing white jerseys. Our best player is Kaden. He is over 6 feet tall, and is a really good shooter. His also a great defender.

It is the first round of the Basketball State playoffs, and with eight seconds left, the talented Northwest team is down by three. The star point guard speed dribbles up the court, the tension on and off the court is immense, the pressure is even greater. Everyone during and prior to this game, had witnessed a season full of promise, and the consensus conclusion for most recognized this team as the best team to have ever come out Northwest High School. This was our best and likely only chance for success. So as the point guard puts the ball up, time nearly stops, it has a chance, but in like in life, the game of basketball is unforgiving, he misses. As most made their pre-conceived predictions of the future, or lack thereof, a young sophomore and his Junior Varsity teammates, we were inspired by our elders walking off the court, and the doubters going home. Bonded together, and we believed we were destine for something historical, and mythological outside our small circle. Thus two years later the 2016 Northwest Varsity Basketball team, the discourse community, where I developed relationships with the people I still call my brothers. A community which has shaped my work ethic, and has given me the knowledge of the amount of effort and work it takes to be successful. All of which was in efforts for a goal not even pronounced among our teammates, to us the future was still a mystery, only realized to us a one

I joined a softball team loosely resembling a movie out at the time, “The Bad News Bears”. I joined at the Harlem Community Center (HCC), but there were not enough boys for a league, so we formed a team in the Northwest Community Center league. The HCC sponsored us as well as having provided uniforms. We were not part of the community center for which we played. Yet, were as good as most of the teams were playing, a few players on the team were good, many were mediocre and there were the terrible players. I was not good enough to be

The team wasn’t too great, we won about as many times as we lost, but that was fine. I struggled beyond belief, leading the team in strikeouts at the plate. One night we were in a tied up game heading into the bottom of the sixth inning. We managed to get a runner to third, but with two outs I couldn’t bunt. Once I had watched the first two pitches go by for strikes I knew I had to be looking to swing and come through. I had a feeling that everyone assumed I was about to strike out once again. But once I saw the pitch leave the pitcher’s hand, I knew it was all mine and connected on a line drive to left-center field. Hearing all of my teammates and the parents yell for me felt amazing. The ball landed landed deep in the outfield and as soon as I reached first base I realized I has just hit my first walk-off ever as the run crossed home to score the winning run. Soon my teammates ran out to bash my helmet and congratulate me on my feat. I’ll always carry that moment as my favorite sports memory of all time and I will never forget

I have been playing with older kids myentire life, when I first joined I was a 6 year old playing with 9 year olds. I played for plantationfor 8 years. Plantation was my home it was everything I wanted it to be, but I knew that if Iwanted to fulfill my lifelong dream I would have to move to a more competitive team. It wastowards the end of my freshman year and I was selected to go try out for Boca USSDA whichwas a big deal. I would have to leave my comfort zone and go play somewhere completely newand different. I went to the tryouts ready for stiff competition. When I got there I was mentallyand physically ready for the opportunity in front of me, they gave all the players number to puton there legs to identify who you were. We began to warm up as a group, and then the coachescalled us over and said get ready for the game. It was the longest 5 minutes of my life waiting

“Can we get coaches please,” it was the night of the twelve and under state championship game. Right when we got to the field you could smell the fresh cut grass, as they got the field looking nice. We were getting warmed up and getting pumped about the game. Then all the sudden you could hear the umpire say, “Its game time.” As we take the field all you could feel is the ground rumble from the fans jumping up and down on the bleachers. While on the field, no ball got between us and we got the first three outs of the game really quick. The same happened to us, we hit the ball right to the other team’s players. The game went on and on like this until the last inning. Since we were the home team we had to take the field first in the last inning.

One rainy night in November, I arrived to the church gym for my first basketball practice of the season. As I walked in the doors creaked and you could smell the gym floor. As I already heard the basketballs hitting the ground, bouncing up and down. My friends Brittany and Destiny walked in right behind me through the door. That was when we realized we were the only girls surrounded by all guys. As practice came to a start we began to run, it felt like we were never going to stop. Up and down the court as we ran suicides, you could hear the squeaking of shoes as we went from the next line back and then on to the next. Before we started scrimmaging, the two captains were boys. Brittany, Destiny, and I stood in amazement as we were the last three standing there. You could see by their expressions they didn’t want any of us on either team.