Through out my four years, the last four years of highschool an adult that has been a

positive influence on me? There's a couple that come into mind. I feel that every year there's

someone new that has influenced me in a positive way. Freshman and sophomore year it was

basketball and coach Nava, he always kept it straight up, real with you, he never sugarcoated

anything. When he would have us in the classroom doing our homework he always told us “ We

have to get our work done no matter what.” He would talk about how some of us want go on to

college and some of us will and will not have the opportunity to play basketball at a Collegiate

level so we always have to put our are School priorities first and basketball second yes the game

we love most basketball can only take you so far and your education could take even further. At

first I didn't want to face it, I was in love with this game, and will always be, basketball taught

me alot,It show me if you put in the work you can achieve anything, believing can only take you

so far, the hard work will take even further. Basketball has taught me it's a journey to where you

want to get to and I put my education in that perspective. If I believe I can graduate high school

imagine what I can do if I stop believing and start actually working for it.

Like I said before I didn't want to face it, Face the fact after my ankle and my left knee

would bother me when I will play the game that I love the most, the thing that I love most, the

thing that made me, but what I learned from basketball and Coach Nava, is that to get the job

done you always have to have your mentality, your eyes, your heart, your body and yourself

ready, always ready to compete because someone out there wants it more than you.

What I've learned while playing basketball I put that into my education I see it

differently now, freshman and sophomore year I always kept my grades up because of

basketball. but like I said my ankle and my knee would bother me when I played so that's when I
had to take my education more seriously and I did it was harder because I wasn't doing it for

basketball anymore I didn't get to blow off steam or the stress or the anger that I felt throughout

the day on a bad day, that's what made it hard for me. So when I'm having a hard time with the

homework assignment or project or something school-related, I will but it into a basketball

perspective, and remember the times where I would struggle With some plays but I kept

working on it and you eventually got it and that's what I do with school work, I work until I get

it.