Personal Narrative: Ballaban Field

Waking up at five in the morning isn't easy, especially when it's summertime. But that was my reality every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. My dad would take me to Ballaban Field and just before practice I would lay down on that field and talk with my teammates for a few minutes. Then practice would start and the next three hours were the most challenging physical times of my life. First we stretched, this was the time to get our mind and body ready for the gauntlet that the coaches would throw down in front of us. Then coach would send offense or defense into the weight room first. If you didn't lift first then you immediately took your shirt off because you didn't want to throw up on your shirt. We'd run and run, surpassing our own expectations of toughness and grit. After running my body ached all over, but I knew we still had an hour of intense lifting ahead. After practice, I would be totally exhausted but satisfied knowing I

When you are faced with adversity or thrown some curve that life presents without this character building lesson you might feel weak and want to give up. Working as hard in practice as I did built character and my reputation with my coach and other teammates. That is what those practices taught us, it pushed us to our limit so we would be able to push through real life adversity in the future. Every person faces adversity, what separates people is how they deal with it. I believe that those countless hours in the summer have changed my mindset when facing a challenge. I have studied harder because of it, my grade average went from 92.5 freshman year to a 95 this year. I realized that something isn't worth your time unless you try your absolute hardest and that was my mindset this year. If I never played football I doubt my grades would be as good as they are right now. I believe that hard work definitely altered the way I approach situations and my