Having grown up in a family that revolved around sports, I have always felt like athletics is one of the major parts of who I am; not just basketball, but any type of sport or athletic competition. I have always been an extremely competitive person, and sometimes even to a fault. When I was younger I was lucky enough to live in two different neighborhoods, both with kids my age that were also athletically inclined and enjoyed all types of sports and neighborhood games. This is where I began to fall in love with competition, and fall in love with sports. To this day, I’m still not sure whether it is the passion of winning or my hatred for losing that drives my competitive spirit, but either way I know it has been a part of me for as long as I can remember. I was the kind of kid that forced you to continue playing for as many times as it took for me to win. On too many occasions my sister and I would come storming into the house after a brutal game of one on one tackle football, which never seemed to end well for her, and complain to my mom that someone was cheating, usually me.
This love for competition and sports transitioned into my summers, where I was fortunate enough to attend sports camps involving all different activities. As I grew older and became too old to attend summer camps, I began working these sports camps that I had spent most of my life enjoying. This is where I developed the passion for teaching and coaching kids to help them improve their athletic skills, but also connect with them and help them grow as people. When I was a camper, I used to idolize some of the high school and college kids that coached me. I wanted to be just like them in so many ways, and hung on to every word they said. To this day, I can still tell you who my coaches were, the good and the bad, throughout my middle school years at my favorite camps. As I transitioned from camper to coach at these camps, I kept in mind what a lasting impact my coaches had on me, and wanted to have a similar positive effect on the kids I got to work with. Coaching and working with kids helped me personally mature in so many ways during the years in my life when I needed it most. By understanding the impact I could have on a kids life through simple day to day interactions, it made me more aware of how I carried myself, and interacted with others. This simple joy of helping kids grow is something that I am extremely grateful I get to continue doing through this great opportunity. In the time I have been over here in Ireland I have met some amazing kids that I have learned so much from. While I cherish the time I get to spend teaching them the game of basketball, it is the time that we spend sitting around chatting before or after training sessions that the true bonds are forged. I can only hope that these great kids have learned as much from me as I have from them, and I can’t wait for the rest of the year with them.
