This is a story about the time that my coach told me that I wasn’t going to be a good basketball player. Because I was just too small and not in shape but he was proven wrong. In seventh grade I played for a team called Basketball University, and I wasn’t the fastest by far the biggest by far. In fact I was only 5’6 and I wasn’t the most skilled. With that being said I was placed on the second team. The coach wasn’t a fan of me every time I shot. It was always that we could get a better shot than that.didn’t have me with the ball in my hand wasn’t a good shot in his eyes. So then I left that team and my 9th grade season was up coming.

My confidence coming in being at an all time low Coach Adam saw the good in me and keyed in on the potential I had. So when our fist game happened I showed out and had 17 the first game and then the next had 25. I was playing so well I got pulled up to the Jv at a 6a level school. But this is where things start to take a turn.

Well my first game playing with the JV we only have 6 players 2 of which are my older friends who I know I’m better than. This already made me question why I’m not playing over them, but nevertheless he puts me in the game at the start of the 3rd quarter. I go in their and make a reverse layup. He then tells me we could’ve got a better shot than that then I start having flashbacks to seventh grade and I finished the game with two points, being the one reverse layup.  Then in the huddle he yells at me for not being more vocal, even though I’m at a new school, new teammates and just being pulled up to his team.

He then calls me out saying “why don’t you talk” and this just makes me angry so I reply “aye bro chill with all that I’m just here to hoop!” Now if you ask why I said that it’s because I was really trying to go back and play with the freshman after that 2 points I just scored with all my freshman teammates watching me but he didn’t kick me off the team, instead benches me and not giving me the option to go be with my friends and freshman teammates.

Well, this made me not really care much about basketball as a whole. During practice I used to walk out  of the gym go to the lunch room and buy skittles and bring them back to practice and eat them while practice was going on. That shows you how bored I was and how little he needed me over they’re.

I’m now in the tenth grade with a great basketball team and coach and having a great summer season. I am now ranked in Texas as one of the 100 people that are ranked here and I did it for myself to prove the haters wrong; for all those who said you are not skilled and don’t have a future, for all the second teams they used to put me on, now they play on my second team. And I lead the first team with a smile on my face and a chip on my shoulder.

Why? Because everything I got I earned and worked my butt off everyday until I was finally able to look back at the ones who I envied and laugh as they now want to be me.

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