True Champion Jesse Warner was born in San Diego on April 18, 1993, just the same as all the other babies born that day at Hawthorne Medical Center. He was born into an upper-middle class family, one that went to the Methodist church every Sunday and both parents were well-respected in their fields. His father was a physical therapist, his mother a lawyer at one of the more successful firms in the downtown area. In 1997, he was enrolled in a prestigious private elementary school known for churning out some of the smartest students and athletes to the middle and high schools. Up until then, he was just a normal child. Then, he discovered basketball. At birth, he had been measured at thirty inches, so he had always been a large kid. In the …show more content…
Barker, Wilson, lead ‘em.” Shawn Barker and Andrew Wilson were seniors who had been on Coach Paterson’s squad since they were freshmen. They were considered two of Coach’s favorites. Shawn was a quick, flashy point guard with endless range, a great ability to pass, and the means to outsmart each and every one of his opponents. Andrew was a combo forward who could bench 350 and run five-minute miles, along with scoring and racking up steals or rebounds by the busload. They hustled to their positions at the front of the gym, beginning to lead.
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Tryouts came and went, along with freshman year. Jesse did his normal thing - rack up rebounds, block lots of shots, score point after point. Sophomore and junior years went much the same. They had won a state championship in his junior year; Jesse had twenty points, seventeen rebounds, six assists, and four blocks. Finally, Jesse had reached his senior season, his last at Harwood. He’d shot up to six-foot ten and was benching 400 easily. He took a moment to duck into Coach Paterson’s office. “Coach?” Jesse carefully asked, knocking
Remember that boy in high school that was the star of the basketball team? He still holds most of the records for the team. He scored more points than anyone else in the school’s history. He never studied much because he was an athlete. His basketball skills were going to take him places. But high school ended and there are no more games to be played. Where is that former all-star now? In his poem “Ex-Basketball Player,” John Updike examines the life of a former high school basketball star. Flick Webb was a local hero, and he loved basketball. He never studied much in school or learned a trade because he was a talented athlete. Now years later, the only job Flick can find is working at the local gas station. He used to be a star, but now he just “sells gas, checks oil, and changes flats” (19-20). The purpose of Updike’s poem is to convince the reader that athletes should also focus on getting a good education.
Christopher Albert Herren (born September 27, 1975) from Fall River, Massachusetts, was the Durfee High School basketball superstar. His family’s basketball legacy at Durfee included his father, grandfather, two uncles and his older brother who Chris would drink with as a freshman in high school. His brother said that it was normal to drink, drug, fight, and play hard. Recruited by Boston College after turning down offers at the University of Kentucky and Duke University, Chris was featured in magazine articles including a Sports Illustrated cover story, hyping his success. In 1994, Chris broke his wrist playing his first game at Boston College. He took a year off from playing basketball to “not study and do drugs”. Within three months of his injury, Chris failed two drug tests and was subsequently kicked off the team and expelled from college. Drugs took everything away by the time he was eighteen years old.
Joes High School’s total enrollment consisted of sixteen girls, and twenty boys. Ten of the boys that had enrolled there played basketball. All of the boys were over six feet tall. Lane Sullivan, the new coach of the basketball team, had never even touched a basketball before he started coaching. Sullivan had never coached anything at all before he started coaching the Joes basketball team. In order to gain knowledge about the sport, he got a book about it. He started coaching in 1927, but before the 1928 basketball season, Joes High School didn’t even have a gym. Instead, they’d practice outside on a dirt court, and two times a week they’d take a bus to the nearest gym, which was ten miles away. In order to play home games, the boys had to play in the local dance hall. The “court” was nowhere near regulation size, and the ceiling was so short that the boys couldn’t shoot an arched shot. The people who attended these basketball games had no place to sit and watch the game, the all stood around the edges of the court and on the small stage. Joes High School finally got their own gym around Christmas time because the people of Joes donated their time and material in order to make it happen.
After reading this journal you can most definitely see I connected with Pete’s pressures as a basketball player, questioned Ronnie’s actions in high school, and evaluated how great Pete was in college. Pete had a very unique basketball history whether it was in high school or in college he was just an out of this world basketball specimen.
Imagine being raised in a corrupted family in the suburbs of east La, where everyday there is new conflict arising. This is the life that Jesse from the novel, Jesse by Gary Soto has to go through everyday and much more. Jesse’s father was killed in a work related accident and their family adopted a new Stepfather who has a nasty attitude to everyone due to his addiction of alcohol. His mother whom is a bystander in all of the situations does not take matters to her own hands allowing her kids to be verbally abused by the stepfather. Jesse miraculously overcomes one obstacle but continuously battles another situation, but he gains strength and wisdom, these circumstances forge him to be who he is, strong, caring, and adaptable.
David Robinson majored in mathematics and excelled in all of his classes at the United States Naval Academy. He was an outstanding all-around athlete and chess player. He was also a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate fraternity for African-American men. He soon chose to try out for the United States Naval Academy basketball team. By the time he played his first collegiate basketball game, he had grown to 6 ft 9 in, and over the course of his college career he grew to 7 ft 1 in. In David Robinson’s last two years, he was a consensus All-American and won college basketball’s two most prestigious player awards, the Naismith and Wooden Awards (Lewis, 30). By the time he left the academy he was viewed by most as the best basketball player in U.S. Naval Academy history! He holds the record of most blocks in a single season in college basketba...
“Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). There they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle,” (John 19:17-18). Jesus Christ’s valiant life was terminated with a horrendous execution. Tom Robinson’s did as well. He lived his life in the name in the name of others, helping everyone that he could, going out of his way to save people, even Judas, who would betray him. Tom did this aswell, constantly assisting Mayella, she who would betray him in court. Jesus had followers who believed in his message, just as Tom had believers in his innocence. Jesus and his followers would face persecution, just as Tom and hisi believers would. The judgements and death sentences of Jesus and Tom would make them become martyrs. The Martyrdoms would be essential for their causes. Many aspects of Tom Robinson’s life and death
In The United States the number of people in prison is over two million, and of those two million it is estimated that two thirds of them will be back in prison within three years (Correctional Populations). Some people argue that rehabilitation is the most effective way to handle prisoners, but the risks don’t outweigh the benefits, especially for murderers. Nobles was an example of a murderer who appeared rehabilitated, but under close examination of his actions, he was no more than a manipulating sociopath. Nobles was not rehabilitated because his actions in court showed how he felt, his faith was a facade, and he was a schizophrenic.
Jesse Jackson had a hard but ultimately successful early life. He was born on October 8, 1941 to Helen Burns and her married neighbor, Noah Robinson. Jesse was taunted as a child for being "a nobody who had no daddy” (notablebiographies.com). While Jesse was originally named Jesse Louis Burns, at age fifteen he took on the name of his stepfather, Charles Jackson, who had adopted him earlier. Jesse attended Sterling High School in South Carolina, where he “was elected president of his class, the honor society, and the student council, was named state officer of the Future Teachers of America, finished tenth in his class, and lettered in football, basketball, and baseball (Ryan, encyclopedia.com). Jesse’s athletic success in high school earned him a football scholarship to the University of Illinois, which he left South Carolina to attend in 1959. Then, during his freshmen year there, Jesse became displeased with football and the way he was treated on campus, and transferred to the “predominantly black Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina in Greensboro and received a B.A. in sociology in 1964” (Ency...
Jesse Owens, who was born in the southern state of Alabama, was a frail African American boy. Owens parents made the courageous decision when he was nine years old to move north in hopes to find a positive atmosphere for their family. Owens was never involved in sports because of his size, until his middle school coach recruited and trained him to be a member of the track team. Owens practiced until he got it right and made his way through multiple track events during his high school career.
Sports specialization among young people is when a child or teenager trains for and competes in only one sport. They work extremely hard year-round in order to become well-rounded in every aspect of the game. They make sacrifices and put their health in jeopardy in order to become the ultimate participant in their sport. One of the many young athletes who is only participating in and focusing on one sport is fifteen-year-old OJ Mayo from Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the young talented athlete who is predicted to be the next LeBron James in the National Basketball Association (NBA). This young athlete provides evidence of striving for perfection in this single sport when reviewing his daily schedule versus that of his siblings. He says, “The other kids go home and sleep. I come back to the gym” (Thompson, 2004). He is obviously putting forth a lot of effort in his sport to become successful at an early age.
During his freshman and sophomore years, he attended Central High School, a segregated high school in Mobile where he stood out at both football and baseball. Fearin...
Jesse Owens was born on September 12 1913. He was born in Oakville, Alabama and was born with the name James. Jesse had nine siblings. His family was very poor. They were all sharecroppers which means they were owned by white people but got little money. Even the kids and to help do the job. Every Winter Jesse would get pneumonia and had to work through it. Also every year he would get a big bump. One time it got so big his mom had to get a knife and cut it off. When Jesse was nine hid father found out that the landlord was cheating them out of their money. So once they had enough money, they moved to Ohio. His father found better work there and so did a lot of his family members. Jesse had trouble in school there. On his first day, his teacher asked him what his name was and he said his nickname which was J.C. but with his southern accent it sounded like he said Jesse. That name stuck with him for the rest of his life.
Junior Battle was the best player on the team and led them in scoring and rebounds. However, he struggled off the court and failed to get his schoolwork done. Junior’s struggles with his schoolwork caused problems between him and his coach. Nevertheless this problem was quickly resolved due to his mother, Ms. Willow Battle, love and compassion for her son. Ms. Battle pleaded with the coach to keep Junior on the team so she would not lose her second son to the streets.
In the players’ lives, success could be seen in their basketball state champion title. In the assistant coach, Shooter’s, life, success could be seen in Shooter going to rehab and defeating his alcohol addiction. The success story that stuck out the most to me, however, was the Coach Norman Dale’s success story. When the coach first stepped foot into the little town of Hickory, the basketball enthusiasts wanted him to follow their lead. They had done the same style of ball play since forever, and they did not plan on changing anything. So, when the coach stepped in and started to change things up a bit, the town voted him out of his coaching position. Before the voting, coach did not change his ideals, even though he knew that the people in Hickory wanted him to change. He stuck with what he believed because he had faith in his set up, faith in his players, and he trusted that it would all work out. The coach asked for patience, and patience is all he needed from the little town to show what he really had potential for. His intent was not to win, but it was to see improvements in his player’s attitudes and his assistant coach’s life choices. Once coach had started seeing these types of changes, he was thrilled and his excitement was very obvious. Before his team had even won the state championship, the coach had already deemed the season a success. Upon seeing how the coach had