Dustin Johnson was born on June 22, 1984, in Columbia, South Carolina, to Kandee and Scott Johnson. Sports seemed to be in his blood. His grandfather, Art Whisnant, played basketball in college in the 1960s. Johnson went to Dutch Forks High School, where he helped his golf team earn the Big Sixteen 4A title. He briefly was off course as a teen; he was persuaded to purchase some bullets for a stolen gun that was later used in a murder. Johnson testified at trial, was pardoned for his part in the criminal activities, and did some soul-searching. He realized how close he had come to throwing away both golf and college and refocused on his sport. After high school, he attended Coastal Carolina University, where he majored in sports management. He credited his golf coach, Allen Terrell, with guiding him as a young man. "Playing for him changed my life. He was a tough coach," Johnson told Golf magazine. "You had to do the right thing or else you didn't play." …show more content…
During his freshman year in 2003 and 2004, he finished sixth at the Big South Conference Championship, which was his best finish of the season.
Johnson improved during the following season, when he led his team to its first appearance in the NCAA Championships. For his performance that year, he was named the Big South Player of the Year. Johnson and his team returned to the NCAA Championships during the 2005-2006 season. The golfer was named first team All-American as well as Big South Player of the Year for the second year in a row. He won the 67th Monroe Invitational and ended his college career with yet another Big South Player of the Year honor. Johnson also became the Coastal Carolina career scoring
leader. Professional Career Johnson turned pro in 2007 and played in just one event on the PGA tour that first season. The following year he had 30 appearances at PGA events. In 2008 he had his first tour win, coming in first at the Turning Stone Resort Championship. Johnson then won the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in 2009 and 2010 as well as the BMW Championship in 2010. He famously lost the lead in 2010 at the PGA Championship when he hit the ground with his club while trying to hit his ball out of a bunker. A copy of the rule about hazards had been distributed to all players before the tournament began, but the golfer later admitted he had not read it. Johnson protested the penalty, but lost the appeal as well as a chance at the playoffs. "Those experiences have made me a better player," he later told Golf magazine. In 2011 he was the champion at the Barclays, and he was first at the FedEx St. Jude Classic the following year. The golfer won the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in 2013, and he ended the season with more than $2.5 million in earnings. Johnson then won the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions in 2014. However, his luck did not carry through at the Masters. Johnson opened with a 77, but he failed to make the cut after the second round and was eliminated. Personal Life Johnson was devoted to several charitable causes. In 2010 he formed the Dustin Johnson Foundation, which promoted several youth golf programs. Off the golf course, he found time to date. In 2013 Johnson became engaged to Paulina Gretzky, the daughter of famed hockey player Wayne Gretzky.
Cal Ripken, Jr., was the perfect baseball player. He would play when he had the flu and even when he had a sprained ankle.
For my Mid-Term, I have decided to write about one of the greatest pitchers of all times. His name is Lynn Nolan Ryan Jr. most people know him as Nolan Ryan. He pitched in the Major League from 1967- 1993. He was born on January 31, 1947 in Refugio, Texas. He was the final child of six. He grew up on a street called Dezso Drive in Alvin, Texas. He delivered a paper called the “The Houston Post.” This route was 55 miles long, and so that he could finish, he had to wake up at one and start delivering these papers because his father wanted him to have some responsibility. This would take him four hours to complete.
He was born in Mobile, Alabama called “Down the Bay” on February 5, 1934. His real name was Henry Louis Aaron. He was the third of eight children. His mother’s name was Estella and his father’s name was Herbert. His dad was a tavern owner and a dry dock boilermaker’s assistant. His mother did not have a job until Hank was older. He lived in a town where there was segregation. Hank lived where it was rural and it was a lowly populated town. The town was fueled by a migration of farm workers looking for city work. Hank took an early interest in sports. Although the family had little money, and Hank took several jobs to try to help out, he spent a lot of time playing baseball at a neighborhood park. He had jobs such as mowing lawns, picking potatoes, and delivering ice. He started to love the game when his father’s local team formed out of the tavern he opened next to the family house called The Black Cat Inn. He played baseball with the local kids in the wide open fields. Until too many children to take care of at home, his mother worked in one of Mobile’s white households, where work was available for blacks as maids and cooks. Hank and his family moved to Toulminville, right outside of Mobile, at the age of eight.
James was trained in music and other subjects by his mother, a schoolteacher. Johnson graduated from Atlanta University with A.B. in 1894. He later obtained a M.A. in 1904 while studing at Columbia. For several years he was principal of the black high school in Jacksonville, Fla. He read law at the same time, and was admitted to the Florida bar in 1897, and began practicing there. During this period, he and his brother, John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954), a composer, began writing songs. In 1901 the two went to New York, where they wrote some 200 songs for the Broadway musical stage.
Jackie was born and raised in Cairo, Georgia 1919. He was raised by his single mother Mallie along with is four siblings. He was the first person at UCLA to obtain a varsity letter in baseball, basketball, football, and track. He married Rachel Isum who he met at UCLA. He however had to leave school due to financial reasons and decided to enlist in the military, but was honorably discharged due to being court-martialed due to his actions against racial discrimination. Jackie played one season in 1945 with the Kansas City Monarchs leading to further achievements in his professional baseball career.
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).
As a 5’9” sophomore in high school in Wilmington, North Carolina, he tried out for his school’s basketball team but wasn’t good enough, neither tall enough, to make it. He then practiced throughout the year and came back as a 6’3” junior to try out. With his improved skills and After graduating from high school, he accepted a basketball scholarship to the University of North Carolina. In his first season at Carolina, he became the second Tarheel player to start in every game as a freshman and was named Atlantic Coast Conference Rookie of the Year (1982). At the end of his freshman year, he made the game-winning shot against Georgetown University for the championship of the NCAA. The Sporting News named him college player of the year in 1983 and in 1984. He left North Caro...
Composer-lyricist-librettist of RENT, a rock opera inspired by "La Bohème", Jonathan Larson was born in Mt. Vernon, New York, and raised in suburban White Plains, the second child of Allan and Nanette Larson. Both Jonathan's parents loved music and theatre, and show tunes and folk music were always playing in their home. Jon and his sister Julie took piano lessons during elementary school. He could play by ear, and his teacher encouraged him to experiment with rhythm, harmony, and setting words. By high school, he was called the "Piano Man" after the enormously popular song of that title by Billy Joel; he also played tuba in the school marching band. Active in school and community theatre, Jonathan had major roles in several musicals.
John H. Johnson was born January 19, 1918 in rural Arkansas City, Arkansas. His parents were Leroy Johnson and Gertrude Jenkins Johnson. His father was killed in a sawmill accident when little John was eight years old. He attended the community's overcrowded, segregated elementary school. In the early 1930s, there was no public high school for African-Americans in Arkansas. His mother heard of better opportunities for African-Americans in Chicago and saved her meager earnings as a washerwoman and a cook and for years until she could afford to move her family to Chicago. This resulted in them becoming a part of the African-American Great Migration of 1933. There, Johnson was exposed to something he never knew existed, middle class black people.
Andrew Johnson was born to a poor family in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was never formally educated but until the age of 16, he was apprenticed to a tailor. At 16, he ran away to Greeneville, Tennessee where he opened his own tailor shop. He would eventually marry Eliza McCardle who helped to improve on his reading, writing, and math. Because his tailor business was doing so well, he was able to save up and buy a few slaves of his own. The two would have five children together.
Michael Jordan was born on February 17, 1963 in Brooklyn, New York. Jordan's family moved to moved to Wilmington, North Carolina while he was young along with his three siblings. He attended Ogden Elementary School, and later Trask Junior High School. Jordan attended Emsley A. Laney High School, where he anchored his athletic career by playing baseball, football, and basketball ("Michael Jordan" Wikipedia). When jordan was twelve, he played with his local baseball team called the Babe Ruth All-stars. Jordan helped his team win there championship (Mattern 79). As A freshman at Laney, Jordan was cut from the varsity team and was reduced to playin junior varsity. His sophmore year he was cut from the varsity team once again, but this time, his best friend Leroy Smith, made the team. When Michael found out he did not make the team, he said:
Bobby Bowden began his lifelong love for football at an early age. As a young child he would often climb onto the roof of his house and sit for hours watching the local high school team run practice drills. Bobby played football while a student at Woodlawn High School in Birmingham, Alabama and again in college, first at the University of Alabama and then at Howard College (now Samford University).
Amateur title and qualified him to play in the Masters tournament in Augusta, Georgia’s Augusta National Golf Club (Tiger Woods Biography). After Tiger won his third U.S. Amateur title, Woods left college and turned professional on August 29, 1996 (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica). Tiger played in eight events as a pro in 1996, he won two tournaments and was named PGA Tour’s Rookie of the Year. It was obvious Woods was going to be good at this point. Tiger with his huge long game, followed up with his excellent chipping and putting and his confidence on the course, made him an intimidating opponent and popular player among the fans (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica). All of these components put together propelled his game to a level, no one could
Tiger now lives in a new home in Isleworth, Florida. Near the west side of