Life After Football
Experiences change our lives everyday. We learn from our mistakes or successes in order to define who we are. Everything we do, and all that happens to us, changes who we are. However, there are those experiences that stand out above all others, the ones that have a drastic impact on our life styles, the ones that change how we view the world, and how we view our own lives. Our day-to-day lifestyle changes and we are forced to find new ways to do things, forced to change our views on who we are.
The one specific moment that I can pinpoint in my life that created a drastic change of who I am today occurred last year in late August. It was the first week of school and all I was really focused on was the football game coming up on Friday. I had spent most of my summer weight training and practicing for the upcoming season and I got drastically better than the year before, and was ready for anything. Little did I know what was waiting for me in the game to come. An experience that I never imagined would ever happen to me. An experience that never even crossed my mind…until Friday came.
I managed to get through my first week of school without much trouble. I was ready for the game. I went through my normal pre-game after school. I decided to put on some new spikes on my cleats, since my other ones were pretty dull. This was an action that I will question for the rest of my life. The school we were playing was just down the canal bank that passed by our school, so we marched down in full force
Now on the field we stretched out. Everything was the same as so many times before. We went into the locker room for the 15 minutes till the game started. I got into my crazy mindset, and started rocking back and forth, thinking of how much pain I would invoke on my opponents, and how I would go about doing that. I ran through all of the plays in my head at least once.
Life is a series of experiences in which each one of us grows into the individual we are now. Every move, each word and thought shapes our person.
Everyone has had that one moment, or maybe a couple. The moment when their life changes forever, the moments when they know they will never be the same person they were yesterday. These moments are turning points that play a large role in a person’s identity.
Everything in life that we experience effects who we are as a person today. Even if we do not remember all the events that shaped a particular part of our life, we have memories of the events that we believe had the biggest impact. The types or experiences we have both positive and negative help shape us into the types of readers and writers we become.
Throughout my life certain events have shaped the person I have become today. The most relevant point to this change was the when I stood up for myself and said no to playing football like everyone wanted. This decision led to a split in the relationship with my dad, as well as a source of enemies in school, but I was proud of myself for doing what I wanted. I grew up in a small town in a large county. My dad was known by almost every person in the town, either through work or his work with the high school athletics program.
Going into 9th grade I was just like any other eighth grader and I was still trying to figure out who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do with my life and in school. That summer before ninth grade I thought long and hard whether or not I would play football in ninth grade, I had played the year previously, but I had not really found a sure position that I played and I was unsure whether I was cut out for football or not. The week before summer camp, I decided that I would give it a try and I fell in love with the sport and the coaching staff at State College Area High School, the coaches cared just as much about our school and our character as how well we played football, and they taught me how to act as a young man and to properly represent
Can you single out just one day from your past that you can honestly say changed your life forever? I know I can. It was a typical January day, with one exception; it was the day the Pope came to St. Louis. My brother and I had tickets to the youth rally, and we were both very excited. It was destined to be an awesome day- or so we thought. The glory and euphoria of the Papal visit quickly faded into a time of incredible pain and sorrow, a time from which I am still emerging.
Everyone has a story, a pivotal moment in their life that started to mold them into the person they are today and may even continue to mold you to the person that you will become, I just had mine a little bit earlier than others. When I was three years old my brother became a burn survivor. It may seem too early for me to remember, but I could never forget that day. Since then, I have grown, matured and realized that what my family and I went through has been something of a benefit to be and an experience that has helped me in deciding what I want to do with the rest of my life.
There comes a time in life when something happens to someone that will affect their future tremendously or when you have to make a decision that will change your future. In my life so far, I have made a drastic decision by choosing to club swim in the beginning of sophomore year that has affected my life since then, and for many years to come. This choice was drastic because it completely changed my lifestyle, friends, and my physical makeup. When I joined the club team, we were practicing two and a half hours, 6 days a week. This completely changed my lifestyle because before joining the team, I would come home do homework and have tons of free time.
I played on both sides of the ball and had a very productive season. In my sophomore year, I was selected to be on the varsity team. Coach Scarpelli gave me the opportunity to practice with the varsity squad, suit up for varsity games, and play in the weekly JV games. In the spring of my junior year, I went on a strength training program—my dad hired a personal trainer, bought a weight set, and put me on a protein shake diet.
Everyone has a special event that determines our life journey. This event can give us identity, happiness or even pain and sadness. The special event that changed my life was deciding to play basketball because basketball helped me find peace, happiness and gave me identity. When I was ten years old my grandfather succumbed to cancer. His death created hatred inside of me.
Have you ever experienced a defining moment in your life? A moment where the impossible for once, feels possible? A moment in which you can visualize where you are, where you've been, and where you're going next? Such a moment is what changed my life for the better. A moment that separated me from everyone else.
The transitions in life are bound to be the most memorable moments. These changes aren't something we control but something that happens. From moving to a new location to meeting new people change is everywhere. It can be good and bad, but these changes shape something about us. For me, these changes shaped who I became.
An Event which changed my life, well when, I think back on my life there’s
Everyone has milestone days in his/her life that change the direction of his/her life for better or worse. Let me tell you one of my experiences that I will never forget from when I was 12 years old.
Many years ago when I was a freshman in high school, an event happened to me that changed my life for the better. My friend invited me to go hiking with him and his sister. He was going to go hiking in Yosemite. The following day I prepared myself mentally and physically in order to accomplish this hike.