Something that I find interesting is playing sports while still in high school. A student must be well-rounded to achieve a good education and be decent at sports. For a while, I wanted to recruit student-athletes for different college teams, so I would watch video footage of volleyball players and watch their technique. Once I saw the skill they had, I looked at their GPA to determine if they were skilled academically. One student-athlete that I watched on YouTube had a 4.0 GPA and I knew that she would be one of the top college recruits for volleyball. Obviously that dream of mine has passed and I am on to my next big thing. The high school that I attended only offered basketball and volleyball for students to play. I decided to play both sports and fell in love with basketball and volleyball. My school used to have soccer, football, tennis, and other sports, but the principal at the time believed that students should not play sports and that students would lose their education and would not learn anything.

From the four years of playing in basketball and volleyball, I learned skill, teamwork, patience, and self-reflection. I learned these things on the court more than I did in the classroom. I know that some people are not made for sports and have no care for them, but I would argue that every person should play at least one sport, whether in school or travel ball. Playing sports prepared me for the real world and gave me the patience and competitiveness that I will need in my future job. When I had nothing else left for me, I poured my energy into basketball my senior year. I gave that sport my everything and managed to play a good playoff game. Although we did not make the state tournament, we all learned different things about ourselves.

If you have not played sports, I highly encourage you to get into one. Whether it is basketball or football or table tennis, sports will give you characteristics that you thought you would never get.