Alexander G., Oakwood High School
How Sports Spit Out Powerful People
In the words of Albert Einstein, "Learn from yesterday, live for today, and hope for tomorrow". The first 18 years of your life affect the rest of your life. This daunting task that all students must face leaves some overwhelmed. Life is about making the most of every moment, a fact that most learn much too late. You snapped back to reality in your 30s with minimal education, wanting something more. Setting up your life early is the key to success; most great people knew what they wanted as children. Every moment is unique and let me tell you about a woman who taught me that. Imagine you are in your 30s, divorced, and have four kids. Struggling with finances, life keeps throwing low blows. You just keep going; with all your might, you keep struggling to get out of the pit. A pit in all of us that preys on us while we are vulnerable. For most, that is a dead end in life, an eternal weight. My grandmother rejected her fate, worked harder, and struggled her way out. Now she works for Tesla, creating the frames for cars. She is the one who taught me the first thing that I did to improve myself: play soccer.
The field is slightly overgrown, and my new cleats make my feet ache, but I’m just breaking them in. My grandmother passes the ball to me straight like an arrow, and I watch the ball with bated breath. The familiar sound of a foot hitting a ball emanates throughout her backyard. I turn my hips, opening my foot so the inside faces the ball. The ball bounces in a random direction, and frustration starts to creep into my head. Walking over to the ball, I almost trip on the unfamiliar feel of walking in cleats. With a little stumble, I bring the ball back to my original position. Pulling back my foot, I hit the ball to my grandma but missed by a mile. We repeat this process almost every time I see her. It was not fun, but it felt like the first productive thing I ever did. In my grandma's backyard, with nobody watching, I felt that I could really work on myself. Fear pulls people into stunted growth; they are so afraid of making a mistake that they make the mistake of not even trying. Failure promotes growth, and yet we ridicule that failure. Only those who try their hardest, only those who dig themselves out of pits, and only those who shoot their shot succeed in life.
