Hard work It was a sad day nothing could make me happy anymore. I had been sad from the first moment I read the paper. I kept reading the list I must have read it at least ten times. Over and over again kept seeing the same names. None of the names were mine. I had finally realized I did not make the team. I was heartbroken all I have ever wanted just slipped out of my grasp. “It’s ok you’ll make it next year”, said my friend Warren. But what he couldn’t understand was that I wanted it to happen that year. I wanted to make the basketball team that year. “Yeah, hopefully.”, I said, in a low spirited voice. “Don’t worry Austin you did the best you could, and that’s all that matters.”, said my best friend, Dominick, …show more content…
We did this for the whole 7th grade and even into Summer. I had been practicing harder than the rest of the kids in 7th grade, but yet they were still so much better than I was. I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong. I kept thinking that I wasn’t going to make the basketball team again. One day I had enough and just started working hard on building confidence in my shot. I would spend hours on end just trying to build confidence because I had no confidence in anything I did. 8th-grade basketball tryouts finally rolled around. I had been practicing for a whole year, but still felt so much further behind than the rest of the kids trying out. I knew I had to try my literal hardest to make the team. Our tryouts didn’t start till after all the other grades had their practices or tryouts. We did not start till 4:30 p.m., and I stayed after school to practice even more. Every day in tryouts I would try my hardest, and I would even try to stay after tryouts to ask the coaches what I needed to work …show more content…
For as long as I can remember I have always been told to be confident in everything I do, and for as long I can remember I have never been able to be confident in anything. Until I put in the hard work, and it paid off in the long run. My father has always been my greatest friend and supporter, and if it wasn’t for him I would have been walking away from my greatest dream. I thank my father for making me put in the hard work and always being there when I need him the most. Hard work will always pay off at some point. You have to put in the hours if you want to receive them back, but you won’t only be receiving them back you’ll also be getting the knowledge in return as
Ever since I was young my parents said “Drew you should try new things, even if it means you fail at something.” I never really listen to them until one time in the study grade when I decided that it was ok to fail. I asked my parents “ Can we look for a club basketball team that I could try out for?” Thrilled in hearing that I wanted to try something new, they found I tryout for a team called the Cincinnati Royals. A couple of other friends agreed to try out with me, but I was still very nervous because it was my first tryout. All three of us made it through the first round of cuts and were called back for another tryout. I remember being more nervous for the second tryout than I was for the first. My palms sweated the whole night, every shot I took clanked of the rim, it wasn’t my night. My two other friends were told that they made the team, but I unfortunately got cut which I expected given how I performed. At first I saw this experience as an overwhelming failure, but I soon realized that I challenged myself, and I could learn from the criticism the coaches gave me. Taking the new stuff I learned from the tryout, I found a different club basketball team that I was fortunate enough to make, which I got to meet new people and play a sport that I loved. Although I may not have gotten the
It was the most competitive three days of my life, basketball tryouts. This is the first time my friends and I were trying out for a school team, we were all hyped for basketball season. I entered the tryout excited and consequently energetic. Adrenaline was pulsing through all the players bodies, there were 6 foot tall 8th graders with years of experience competing against 6th graders who have never touched a basketball before for the same spots. I was in between, I was a 6th grader that had experience along with some skill. That was also my downfall, I went in overconfident and consequently cocky. I wasn’t planning on getting cut, I walked into the tryout overwrought, nothing could stop me from being on the team.
In 2014 I was determined to make the high school soccer team. Every day at 8 am at the beginning of a dreadfully hot August morning, I would get to the turf fields for 4 hours and participate in “hell week”. After a long week, I made the JV team. I was never put into the game and felt like my hard work was put to no use. My sophomore year rolled around and I tried extra hard to impress the coaches. Anything and everything was a competition to make it to the top. By the end of the week, we all gathered around the paper that had names of the players who made it. I didn’t make the team. After tears and telling myself to move on, I went to the field hockey tryouts. I knew nothing about the sport and was terrified that soccer wasn’t my go-to
been the same way. My mom and dad taught me since I was a child was to work hard and never give up
This past fall I tried out for the varsity basketball team at my high school. I had played both on the freshman team and then last year on the junior varsity team. Playing on the varsity team is all I’ve wanted to do. I’d practiced all summer and in September and October to get ready for the try-outs at the beginning of November. Unfortunately I did not make the team. It was a huge blow for me because I had worked really hard and had expected to make it. Thankfully my moms and my friends were there to remind me that there were other paths to pursue my dreams. I could have easily been bitter and decided to stop caring, but they wouldn’t let me. I was humbled by this experience and decided to turn it into a positive. I’ve since decided to join the Wilson Live club at school. It’s a group that films and commentates sports events at school. This connects to a possible major that I’m interested in when I go to college--communications or sports
I was born in a small town in Iowa. When I was 25 I got drafted in the first round pick for the golden state warriors. The event that really changed in my life was when I was on the warriors in my first game for them. I was involved because my whole life I have been playing basketball and basketball has always been my favorite sport. Everything turned out to be really good because I was so good I was the starting point guard for the warriors. After I played point guard for 15 years for the warriors then I retired and then became the warriors coach for 20 years and then retired from that and then I had so much money I bought a 2060 new mustang for 1 million dollars.
I figured that I had grown about five inches since my freshman year and had gotten stronger it might be time to play basketball competitively once more. When November rolled around I was on the varsity team, but unfortunately my basketball skills was not up to par. It was tough at first, because I was a new face on the team, and the guys on the team had a great chemistry that they had built up throughout the years. After a few weeks had rolled by, I realized that I would not be in the rotation.I told myself that the team’s success is more important than my personal desired statistics.I decided to make the most of my role on the team. It was a tradition for the guys who were not in the rotation to contribute to the game in some way, guys did this by preforming stunts after significant plays and momentum shifts in the game in our favor. This was great because the crowd loved and it and more importantly my teammates fed off of the
Now that I knew the ropes, I was praying this tryout would be a breeze. I could not have been farther from the truth. I faithfully practiced every evening until the eagerly anticipated day. The same nervous energy overwhelmed my body as I walked onto the floor that afternoon. It seemed that within a second, the tryout was completed. Once again, I was forced to calmly wait for the crucial results. Finally the outcome was announced. “Varsity- Kristin Callaway, Jill Jackson, Katie Manley…” I had made the Varsity squad as a sophomore.
Last year over spring break I went to my friend Cory’s house almost every day. One day I go over to his house and we’re playing video games and start talking about our high school basketball season, which had just ended at the time, and we were talking about how we should have won state. Cory then says, “well I guess we’re just gonna have to put in more work over the summer!” then I said, “Aint that the truth!” Cory then told me that he had a club basketball game in two days and so I told him that I’d try to make it, but I’m not making any promises. He told me that I should try out for his team but since our high school basketball season had just ended, I was tired and didn’t really want to play club. He tried to convince me to play club with him by telling me about all the
The moment I stepped into the Hyde Middle School gym for tryouts, I already knew that I would make the team. The basketball I played in my Elementary school has been a big help for me coming into the tryouts. Tryouts were on August 24,2015 where we did drills to help the coach see our skills as an individual players. I could just see all the timid faces of everyone in the gym. The final few hours of tryouts, we were scrimmaging playing five on five. I thought I did a good job scoring most of my team's points besides the fact I missed a wide open lay-up. When tryouts was over, coach told me the few words that I was waiting to hear the whole entire I was at tryouts,“Congratulations, I have selected you to play on my team.”
Just before high school basketball tryouts in my junior year, I was a passenger in a catastrophic vehicle accident. I was unable to participate fully in the varsity team tryouts as a result. My career took a detour due to the limits imposed by the accident. October through January were some of my most depressive months. Fortunately, because the varsity coach knew me, he left me with an option: play junior varsity or take a year off and don’t play any basketball.
I came to the realization that I couldn’t go through life feeling sorry for myself. I was spending my time letting myself make an unfortunate situation worse. So I made the choice to stop. I realized that just because basketball was what I liked to do in my free time didn’t mean it had to be what defined me as a person. I had spent so much of my life dedicating all my time to basketball that I had wasted precious time I should have been using to have experiences and turn myself into a dynamic individual instead of a one dimensional so called
Ever since I was a little boy, about eight years old or so, I had an extreme passion for the sport of basketball. On weekends, I would wake up in the morning, eat a bowl of frosted flakes or cheerios, put on basketball shorts and then go in my driveway to shoot around. I would be out there for hours just shooting around or playing with some random kids that I would occasionally see walking around my neighborhood. This was satisfaction to me, but even better was playing on multiple public teams and not just playing in my driveway every day. In elementary school, I played in a recreational league, just like almost every other kid who tries out basketball when they were younger. This was fun and all but it was nothing too serious. There were never any practices, it was just one or two unorganized games per week. I never took
Down two with six seconds to go fatigue had taken it tolls on the players. With little energy left; over time was not an option. I knew I had to go for the win. I walk on the floor confident of my ability that was until the whistle blew quickly turning my confident to butterflies. As I fought to get open I quickly saw the ball coming my way. As I rose for a jump shot time itself began to stay still. An in flesh everything became silent. As I watch the ball leave my hand I envisioned greatness; sure the ball was on its way in I started to celebrate that was until I hear the announcer say my teammate tip in miss shot to win us the game. Mix with emotion I celebrate with my teammate. “Ok guys, we have 24 hours until tip off. Get some rest because this is going to be the biggest game of your life. Let’s bring this championship back to Barton College. Go Bulldogs and Goodnight!” Why few players stay in the lobby to hang out I took it talk upon to work on my game and reflect on the semifinal game that just took place. At basketball games you will notice how there are all sorts of fans attending the game.
It took me a long time to relearn of my self-worth after that season. Although I did not finish the season as well as I have envisioned prior to the winter, I earned my varsity letter. For all the nights I cried myself to sleep, for all the late-night