Personal Statement

Ten years ago I found out about a local youth football team that my friends were joining and decided to check it out.  I fell in love with the sport and played for that same team for seven seasons.  I did not have the strength and speed when I first started that I have today.  I would be out of breath very easily and have trouble running and keeping up with my teammates.  Over the past 10 years I have worked hard to improve my endurance and stamina and now try to teach my fellow teammates how they can improve as well since I am now an example of what we can accomplish through hard work and dedication to training.

As a lineman on a small youth team, I had gotten used to being both offensive line and defensive line and I am always happy to play in whatever position my coach feels is best suited to help the team around me.  The highlight of my playing time for youth sports was when I was on defensive line and was able to quickly react and pick up a fumbled ball to run it in for a touchdown!  I now attend Ridge Community High School and although I had mostly played as a lineman on my youth team, I can also catch and run the ball decently and my high school coach put me in as starting tight end and wide receiver on our JV team and I had a decent two seasons for my high school freshman and sophomore years.  I also played youth basketball for a year prior to high school and made it onto our JV Basketball team at Ridge for my freshman season, but focusing more on football so didn't play basketball for sophomore or junior season.  Although I lost my birth father before I started to play football and basketball, I have an awesome mom and dad who have supported me the whole time and continue to push me to be better every day.  During my Junior year, I was asked by the cheer coach to join cheer after football season to help with stunts and I have enjoyed the new challenge of helping the cheer team compete as well and plan to do competitive cheer after football season again for Senior year.  I also play trombone in my school's  Jazz Band and volunteer my time to help with shows in the theater at my old school while I work hard to keep my grades up.  I am excited to see what my future holds as I work towards a college degree and make my parents proud!