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Overcoming adversity in sports essay
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Deion Sanders is an American professional football and baseball player. He is one of the few athletes in history to succeed in two professional sports. Deion Luwynn Sanders was born on August 9, 1967 in Fort Meyers, Florida, where he grew up with his mother and stepfather. His parents got divorced when he was really young. Deion loved almost all sports and he was good at all of them. When he was 8 years old he started playing football and even though he was very young, he still was a star. He was even playing teams with kids older than him and still did very well. Another sport he played was baseball and he played that just as well as football.
You might think that Deion didn’t have any religion in his past life, but he did. He grew up going to church with his mother. He has never drank or smoked. Since both of his fathers were addicted to those things, he made a commitment to stay away from that. One day he was with some friends in a car and they were smoking pot. He told them that he didn’t do that stuff and they left him alone.
Throughout his high school years he played all different kinds of sports. He played football, baseball, basketball and ran track. He was one of the best in all those sports. When he played for his high school basketball team he was the leading scorer, and earned the name “Prime Time.” After his four years playing for his high school team, it was time to start looking for a college. Since he wanted his mother to come see him play, his first pick of colleges was Florida State. He had great careers in all the sports he played in. Before his senior year at Florida State University (FSU), the Yankees took him, so he played professional baseball while in college. While he was in college he decided he would stay away from cursing. So every time he cursed he would pay someone 5 bucks. In 1989 he was drafted by the Atlanta Falcons in the first round.
In 1996 when he was playing for the Cowboys and Reds he felt miserable, he said, ”After scoring touchdowns and dancing in the end zone, after a stadium full of cheering fans had finally gone home, I was still empty inside.” Nothing was making him happy, he tried money, women, and just about everything.
first person about his struggles in the beginning of his baseball career, and how he miraculously turns his
Elijah McCoy was born in Colchester, Ontario Canada on May 2, 1844, the son of former slaves who had fled from Kentucky before the U.S. Civil War. Educated in Scotland as a mechanical engineer, Elijah McCoy returned to the United States and settled in Detroit, Michigan.
Jerry Rice is one of the best Wide Receivers in the NFL during the 90’s. Jerry Rice was mostly known for playing for the San Francisco 49ers from 1985 up until 2000. Jerry Rice impressed a lot of college scouts in his early days at High School, so he got picked up from a college called Mississippi Valley State University in 1981. Jerry Rice had lead the 49ers to three Super Bowl victories over the past 15 years playing with them and was named Super Bowl MVP. Finally in 2010 Jerry Rice was inducted into the Hall of
Among them are organizations supporting breast cancer research, veteran outreach, and making children’s dreams come true with the Make A Wish Foundation. During games Odell often wears cleats to raise awareness and funds for the charities he supports. OBJ also impacts children’s lives through his football camps and positivity. Odell truly loves the opportunity to meet his fans and be a positive role model for his fans.In almost every game odell catch a one handed catch.Odell Beckham is one of the fasts and the only one that can catch an one handed catch odell was the most attending player s in the school history, Odell gets his skills from his father because his father played for LSU until Odell father got injured he was out.Odells father relied on his son to go to college and take up after hi father and play football and Odell did odell went to college and played football.In 2014 Odell got elected to go play for the New York Giants that's when Odell life all started when he went to college and then he went to the NFL and played odell been playing football for the New York Giants for 3
he began to shine in the pocket. He broke every passing record at his school. He
Anything a person might want to know about Negro League Baseball can be found in the mind of Tweed Webb. Negro League Baseball is this man's specialty thanks to his father, a semi-pro player and manager. If not for his father, Normal Tweed Webb might never have played shortstop with the St. Louis Black Sox while attending high school and continuing on even while he went to business college where he took a two-year business course taking up bookkeeping and typing. Tweed played ball until 1934. When he was attending a St. Louis school, dressed head to toe in tweed, one of his classmates decided there and then to give him the moniker Tweed.
Hank Aaron was a famous baseball player who was respectful to his teammates and his fans. His nickname was “Hammerin’ Hank”. At one time he led the league in the most home runs. He was born in a poor family and then grew up to be a great professional baseball player. He became one of the most admired baseball players in Major League history.
Jerry Rice is one of the best NFL wide-receivers in history. Throughout his football career he broke many NFL records. He was always working out and said that he was never a couch potato. Jerry Rice’s life was influenced by his early life. His major accomplishments/contributions to American society including breaking almost all the NFL records helped him earn his place in history as an important African American.
Jackson worked extremely hard to get to his current position in life. He practiced non stop it seemed like. In high school, college, and throughout the pros, Jackson worked to get better at baseball, football, and track. He was able to work hard and become a star at all three. It helped that Jackson loved to be around the games, as a kid he and other neighborhood kids would play “stickball”, a form a baseball using a tree branch and a beat up tennis ball. As a teenager he would be working out or practicing constantly at his high school trying to get better (Jackson and Schaap 43).
Bear Bryant was a great man and coach, and he changed his life and college football forever with the decisions that he made. Paul Bryant (Bear) was born into a poor family and was the eleventh of twelfth children. Paul William Bryant was born in Moro Bottom in Arkansas. It's a small, unknown city. Legend has it Bryant got his nickname around the year 1927 by wrestling a bear from a carnival. People say that he only did it to impress a girl! From then on he was called "Bear Bryant" and that's where his legend begins. While the bear's owner left town without paying Bear got to take something home with him better than money... a story to tell your kids in the future. (100 years of Bear). When he was young every morning he would plow the fields
Pollard was raised in Rogers Park, a predominantly white neighborhood and was racially criticized/ bullied throughout his childhood. As a youth Pollard would be called the “n” word by other kids in his neighborhood. It wasn’t until Pollard started high school that he wasn’t as mistreated. While attending Lane Tech High, Pollard was a three-time track champion, an outstanding baseball player, and a star football player. Pollard later on received a scholarship to attend Brown University in 1915. Pollard not only led Brown too but was also the very first African American to play in the Rose Bowl in 1915. In 1916 Pollard was unstoppable and the unrestrainable force that led Brown University to back-to-back wins over Yale and Harvard, two all-star football Ivy League schools. For all his achievements, Pollard was honored with a position to become the first African American running back in Walter Camp’s All American Team. A privilege to any other young football player. Yet, that position was taken away after the discovery of Pollard’s love for partying and hatred for school, causing him to no longer be considered academically eligible. Pollard was then employed to coach at Lincoln University. It wasn’t until the Indians coach, Ralph “Fat” Waldsmith, gave Pollard a second chance to his pathway of football greatness. Pollard was offered $200 by the Indians to play in one game against the Tigers and Pollard quickly caught a train to Ohio. After the game against the Tigers, Pollard was signed to play with Akron for the remainder of the season. The Akron Pros joined the American Professional Football Association (APFA), now today known as the NFL, in 1920, making Pollard one of the only two African-American’s in the
The greatness cannot begin to be quantified in statistics and numbers. Ty Cobb redefined the words hard work and determination by stretching his limited God-given ability to the maximum, and making himself into a baseball legend. Cobb throughout his lifetime insisted that he was "not a super athlete, rather he had a great desire to win." Thus, Ty Cobb’s motivation and determination to excel created a pathway to his success.
As a 20 year old youth in 1883, Billy played baseball in the lots of his neighborhood in Marshalltown, Iowa. One day the captain for the Chicago White Sox, A.C. Anson, was in the lots watching all the teenagers, young adults, and Billy Sunday playing baseball. Anson was so impressed with what he had seen in Billy’s baseball performance that Billy was signed unto the White Sox soon after.
Would a regular citizen enjoy being as skilled of a dancer as a ballerina? Or as intelligent as the next guy? In Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s story of Harrison Bergeron, handicaps, such as small radio’s that blast sharp sounds are used to prevent individuals from having more intellectual thoughts than others. The year is 2081 and everyone is equal in every which way. Handicapped George and his wife Hazel are watching a ballerina performance. The show is interrupted by an announcement to watch out for their son, Harrison Bergeron as he is under-handicapped and dangerous. The conflict begins when Harrison enters the studio and declares he is Emperor. He finds his ballerina Empress, and dances with her before being shot and killed by Handicapper General Diana, resolving the conflict. This event is a more specific account of Harrison’s conflict with the current society as a whole, which is reflected through the use of theme, symbolism, and point of view.
On March 14th, 1947’ Michael (Mike) Wesley Ferguson was born in Detroit, Michigan. When Ferguson was just three weeks old his mother passed away. This left Mike’s father, John to raise eight kids. John remarried which brought the family to eleven kids. He loved all sports growing up, but found a special passion for baseball. Growing up the youngest of eleven kids, Ferguson was always the smallest one. He joined the local baseball team at the age of four, and his passion for the game began there. Ferguson was always the starting pitcher on his local school team. John moved the family to Hickory, North Carolina after a job emerged as a furniture factory manager when Ferguson was only 15. After high school, at the age of 18, he signed up for the