My Mom Really Wanted An Athlete

Softball has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. As a little kid my dad would teach me how to hit in the backyard with a Wiffleball bat that was taller than me. As the years passed, I started to fall in love with the sport more than I imagined possible. From little league to travel ball and all the way through varsity high school ball, it has always been a huge part of my life. Most people don’t understand the sport or how someone can be so engulfed in every aspect of it. However, they don’t get to experience the life lessons that this sport of extreme highs and lows teaches the player. It teaches you patience. It teaches you that imperfection is normal. It teaches you that things can turn around in the blink of an eye and most importantly, it teaches you that all good things must come to an end.

Sports have been a huge part of my life ever since I was about five years old. It has impacted my life so much. The biggest challenge that I faced was with my injuries during basketball and soccer season. I recently had to quit soccer and basketball, which was difficult for me.

Since I was five years old softball and sports have been a huge part of my life. In softball, specifically, there are many times of failure and success. High school sports, for me, has taken a lot of my time, effort, and commitment. From the first day I stepped onto the court and field to the last, I want to be able to say I did my best. It has been tough and frustrating at times. I experienced failure many times, even when I did not want to admit it. My moments of failure within high school sports have turned me into the character and person I am today. It has taught me how to take failure and turn it into success. Failure has made me realize that the only way for you to succeed is for you to fail first.

If I didn’t get to bat, I learned it was equally important to cheer on my team. If I was placed in the outfield, I was just as eager and ready to make a big play. I learned at an early age the importance of unity and being a team a player. Win or lose we all worked together in order to overcome challenges and strive for success. Because of my positive attitude and devotion to boosting team morale I ended up winning the Best Sportsmanship Award during one of our last games at state sectionals, something I’m extremely proud of. I have since had to take a leave of absence from softball due to a serious knee injury, but I continue to put forth the same amount of perseverance and allegiance towards all other aspects of my

I have always enjoyed being involved in school activities. By the end of my high school career, I will have played volleyball and golf all four years. Although I was never the superstar or the best on the team for either sport, I always enjoyed playing and being supportive of my teammates. Getting involved with a team and making new friends has been half the fun. Not only do I play sports, but I also enjoy attending other sporting events. My favorite two sports to watch are football and basketball. While in third grade, I cheered on the 2004 Indian football team to a victory during the State game at Camp Randall. In 2012, I supported both the girls’ and boys’ basketball

I have dedicated countless hours to each sport, which finally paid off in high school. By the end of the year, I will have lettered nine out of twelve seasons. Most importantly, I played on the varsity level all four years in my two favorite sports. Soccer and basketball have always been my all time favorites, which truly shows with the amount of hours I have dedicated to each. Not only did I play for school, but I played for different clubs.

Throughout my life, I have frequently been a part of a team. Whether it was in an athletic, academic, or employment sense, I have learned many life lessons and values solely because I was a part of these teams. Growing up, I was involved in countless team-based sports in which I had a number of roles. There were times when I had to step up and lead, and times where I had to learn to take a step back and follow. I learned that I was only a small part of the success that happens and that the ultimate goal of the team was

To recover from this defeat, I continued playing on my previous softball team. My passion for the game drifted away that season as I

The next practice I was putting my gear on slowly like usual so my best friend Trinity could get there before I had to go practice with another girl, since Trinity was really the only one who was interesting to talk to. When she finally got there, we starting practicing normal catch with the softball. After I finished telling her that I wanted to try pitching, and after a lot of convincing her that I could do it, I tried my pitch. It was to low, and Trinity got it as a ground ball. “I told you you can’t pitch, let’s just practice the normal way.” I said no, I needed to become a pitcher, to help my team and help me to not always be at 3rd base.

I have always loved sports ever since I was a little kid. Some of my earliest memories are of playing soccer with my friends on a wet, cold spring day or hitting a ball off of a tee and feeling like it went a mile, when in reality it only went about fifty feet. Even to this day I still can never get enough of sports. I get about four weeks off out of the entire year where I’m not technically in a sport, but I’m still always practicing and trying to get better because that’s the only way I know. I love everything about sports: the friendships, the competition, the passion, the atmosphere, the unity. Sports are one of my true loves and they consume my life. It is this strong desire that I have for sports that has driven me to want to pursue a

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

I was good enough to make the team, but not good enough to start, and it was made sure that I knew this. At some practice early in the season, it was decided that I would be the scapegoat for the team’s insecurity. I was given the nickname ‘E6’ which means error on the shortstop. Every time I made a mistake, a chant of E6 rang out, eating at my confidence until all that was left was crumbs that could just be swept off the table. Even the coach joined in on the beratement. This caused me to enter into a season long slump, the worst of my life. It was this nightmare season that nearly caused me to give up the game I

Softball has been in my life since i was six-years-old. I have been through many experiences, whether those experiences are good or bad, during softball. The one experience that stands out would be during my Junior year when I was constantly getting hit by the ball. Every time that I was hit, I reminded myself that I had a responsibility as a pitcher, and I need to fight through the pain. This responsibility has also translated into my daily lifestyle in many occurrences.

basketball, soccer, and tennis. I loved each and every one of these sports in a

Most I can’t remember, but some I do have a pretty good idea about, I have done gymnastics, don’t remember the years though, I have golfed before, again don’t remember the years, played soccer, way before middle school, and played volleyball, throughout third or fourth grade to eighth grade. Soccer wasn’t my sport never liked the sport wasn’t good at it either, golf was just way to boring and I hated that you literally had to be quieter than a mouse, gymnastics the couch was quite not nice if you weren’t good then you shouldn’t be there, however, though volleyball was my absolute favorite sport to play throughout elementary and middle school. That was the sport to play nothing else mattered as long as I was able to play volleyball I was a happy camper, even if i was completely awful at it. Course, even then if you weren’t good no one paid attention to you, all that mattered was A team. So being that and all that high school was about I stopped playing volleyball and all those other sports and to this day I really wish I stuck with