Everyone has a passion inside for something. My passion happens to be sports, being able to go against the odds, it ultimately allows me to do something that I love. Having grown up playing sports, I learned that it could be a release as well as a venue to escape from reality. Sports was something that was always there for me when things didn’t always go my way. It provided an outlet when I had nothing else to do.
Over the years, I played on multiple sports teams growing up including, baseball, soccer, track and field. I also enjoyed playing basketball with my friends at the gym, even though I never played for an official team. I always wanted to play football but my mom would never let me. Despite playing all of these sports over the
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Even when I would go on tournaments in places like South Carolina or Destin, Florida with my travel team, people would look at me differently as one of the rare black players on the field. I’m sure I surprised some people when I was actually good, which was probably the last thing they expected to see. I think they felt that I was just a black kid from New York who was in the “wrong” sport. One thing that I have learned in life, is that sometimes you have to fight through adversity in order to be successful and not care what other people think.
While playing soccer, I was able to volunteer with inner city youth who were not as fortunate as I was. I enjoyed this because it allowed me to be a role model for younger players. My motto was you can do anything you set your mind to.
Playing many sports has its drawbacks though, one big drawback is that of injuries. For baseball pitchers, like myself, the most common injuries often involve the arm. Unfortunately, I have had to overcome some arm injuries during my years of playing. Fortunately for me, I have not have one of the more severe injuries called a UCL (ulnar collateral ligament) injury, otherwise known as Tommy John injury, which requires reconstructive