My Life After The Athletic Banquet

I walked off the floor with sweat dripping from my hair. So many thoughts flew through my head that I couldn’t focus on anything. My junior year of basketball felt like it ended as quickly as a blink. It was as if in seconds we went from the stars of the state tournament to the embarrassments of it. I tried to forget the disappointment of it but it still will not leave. My desire and love to win games comes from the more apparent hatred of losing them. Junior year we had a chance to win a state championship, but we lost that chance. That was when I realized that I had one chance left to win. Senior year our basketball success would only be as rewarding as we would make it. The pressure placed on ourselves was substantial, and we faced trials on the road to success. In the end, we stood alone, crowned as the champions, not letting our chance slip away.

The day was October 8th, 2014. I hardly played. One school day, my 5th teacher, Ms. Smit said, “flyers for the basketball team on the table” ordinarily I took one. Kids from 4th, 5th, and 6th grade came to try out for the team. After tryouts, a paper next to the nurse's office was hung up. The paper sheet named those who had made the team. Surprisingly, I made the team, most likely from my height. I felt like I shouldn’t have made the team. At the time, I barely started to play basketball. I went to the practices at school and tried to make myself a little bit better, since a tournament was about to begin in a few weeks.

It is my job as a coach to help develop athletes physically, psychologically, and socially while helping them have fun by playing a sport. I will do this by being enthusiastic and having a positive attitude in practice, games, and while not coaching. This cooperative approach to coaching will create a sense of community within the team I coach, and the athletes will feel more welcome to discuss their thoughts, ideas, questions, and concerns with me. Creating this setting and relationships with athletes will only benefit the team by creating a team culture necessary for the well-being and success of high school sports’ teams. Success in sports means accomplishing goals set by the team, not winning. Winning is important, but just striving to win is even more vital toward the success of teams. As a coach, I will also be a motivator for athletes. Athletes will see me come to practice with a positive attitude, displaying my passion. This is the beginning of how I will motivate athletes. Motivation starts with my attitude, and athletes pick up on this. In order to motivate and want to be motivated, there must be a reason, a why? I will use the teams’ goals they will set, in order to motivate them to give their best effort in order to achieve success by reaching their

There’s a saying that everyone’s said at least once in their lifetime, I’m sure. It’s so cliché, but now I know that there is so much truth behind it. “Believe in yourself.” Rather than giving up on yourself, use your failures to make you better. Learn how to bounce back from adversity and learn from those experiences. This is called using your growth mindset. According to Carol Dweck, research psychologist, in her book Mindset, “In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.” It wasn’t until the summer between my junior and senior year of high school that I learned this and of course I learned it the hard way. I had played club basketball for four summers in a row with the Longmont Rush basketball club. I loved the game of basketball and I had spent countless hours working on my skills on the court. I even wanted to play in college. I already had schools scouting me. Unfortunately, in my final season, just before my senior year, my biggest fear came true.

Again, tryouts came for the next greuling school year. The only difference from last year, I was prepared. I knew the cheers, I knew the feeling of standing in front of crowd so ecstatic from a winning game and I knew the feeling of a crowd sitting at a loss for words in the face of defeat. I knew my goal and I was absolutely determined to reach it. I could only be described as a lioness on the prowl and the Varsity squad was my prey. Just as anxious as the year before, though this time with a hint of confidence, I made my tryout a culmination of completely everything I had learned from my wildly experienced past. That night, I reached my ultimate goal and earned the prized name of Varsity cheerleader. The next day I practically walked around with an enormous V on my forehead, honored by the position. With all this positivity, I knew there was something to come. That same summer, I hadn’t received a lucky chance to become even a contender in the

As an individual I love staying active, socializing with others, being dependable, and keeping busy. Playing Basketball for Flour Bluff ISD, since the seventh grade, has granted me the opportunity to achieve all of these goals. For some peculiar reason I have consistently felt that I lacked experience of which my peers had, and that I would never be able to acquire it. Soon after I started playing I became intimidated of my fellow teammates and worried about the time I felt I lost, due to beginning so late in my childhood. Without fail, I always feel a sense of accomplishment after making it through tryouts every year and as I approach my final season, it has become clear just how much of my life was devoted to Basketball, that I truly love it and how I am thankful to be a part of something much more than just a team.

For most of my life, I was skilled in organized sports, especially soccer, which I had played for many years. After a successful soccer season my freshman year, I thought that I would make the JV team for sure. At tryouts, I went through the motions of each drill. I breezed through the conditioning tests, doing the bare minimum for each test. I didn’t try as hard as others, as I felt that I was more skillful than most of my peers.

Along with NHS, being actively involved in varsity sports throughout high school has made me gain a “work hard” attitude. This attitude of constantly working above and beyond will carry over to my future education and career to help me succeed. As a two-year captain of both volleyball and cheerleading, I have learned to be a team leader while also being a team player. High school sports have instilled lifelong lessons in me such as working hard, being responsible, and being a leader, that I know will aid me in by success in academics and a

As I put off opportunities to improve my skills, and my character, the toll only became harsher and more difficult to overcome. In turn, my status among the other athletes began to deteriorate. Witnessing my peers expedite their game as I still struggled did not phase me so much at the time. In fact, I was sure that my role on the team would remain the same. This was obviously false, as within the matter of weeks I was pushed back further in the batting lineup, and committing more errors in the field than ever before. It was during our playoff run that I had realized the resulting detriment, when each player was counted on more than ever before. We ended up making it to the championship, only being one run short of winning. Although our team was able to accomplish that much, I felt short handed when it came to the successful

It was my sophomore year, and the day had come to find out who made the varsity lacrosse team. We piled into the locker room to discover rows of brand new helmets. The list of the varsity players was written on the whiteboard. The team was excited, the locker room buzzing with noise. My heart dropped as I realized that my name wasn’t written there. My friends were admiring their new helmets and I had to hold back tears and disappointment. I know now that I still had to be developed at the junior varsity level, but it wasn’t easy to understand back then. At practice that day, I played out of pure spite, every move filled with rage. You aren’t good enough, I thought. I left practice that day without saying goodbye to my friends.

It is my junior year of high school and basketball season is right around the corner. I am on the verge of either making varsity or junior varsity this year depending upon my skills. Went through the tryouts and was able to make the junior varsity again for my second year with coach Maloney. I was all excited to play there again seeing I was one out of the three kids that made it back there again. From there it was Cam, Anthony, and I who thought would lead the team because we were the only ones who knew how to run Maloney’s offense and defense well that’s what I had thought was gonna be the case but in reality it wasn't. I thought I would be a starter for the team, but in reality I ended up being a bench player or how I thought of it as a

At the start of high school my life began to take a turn. Up to that point my life had been predictable. I had the same friends, played the same sport, and was still an introverted person. My life was bland. Baseball is what I grew up playing throughout my childhood. It was that sport I looked forward to practicing, playing, and enjoying. As I started to get older, the people and coaches I played with changed. I began to play less, and wasn’t improving every week like I had hoped. I even tried out for the school team, but I was cut. For these reasons, my dedication to this sport was deteriorated. Trying out for the school team wasn’t what I wanted to do, but it’s what I presumed everyone expected of me. Once I ran passed this realization, I stopped playing baseball. This is not how I envisioned the future.

Sophomore year came, and I was nervous because now there was jv dark and varsity to worry about. I came to tryouts, and gave all my effort on volleyball as well as my friends. They had made the teams, and I never expected to be in jv dark. My best friends didn 't made it to jv dark but I couldn 't miss this opportunity. In addition, I was depressed that I could not be with them, but I needed to be in a team that I knew it was going to help me become better. It surely did because now there was more tasks that I could do. My serves were something no one could receive. Consequently, the only horrible part of jv dark is that I never had the chance to play. I came to practice everyday and I followed instructions, I never complained if we ran, but the coach never showed me that I could be in the court. I did showed her, I tried to show off my abilities in volleyball for her to notice. As a result to that she always put me aside. In effect of this, it brought me down I

I’ve often had to live up to the expectations of my two oldest sisters who started in Volleyball and Basketball. I set forth on a path to exceed these expectations. My success in and out of athletics is a direct result of how far hard work, dedication, and integrity can go. To live up to the expectations of my sisters, I knew that I would have to put in extra hours in the gym and on the court. Staying late after practice and putting in my own hours made it more difficult to spend time with friends and finish homework.

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.