I feel like every time I sit down to write these blog posts, only two weeks has gone by, but I have done so much in that time. Last Saturday evening, my club team, the UL Huskies played against the NUIG Mystics, a team that has two other scholars on it. I was able to play against Karlee and Becca who both had amazing games. While we faced a tough loss, it is always nice to see familiar faces and the best part was the two of them spent the night in Limerick with Ian, Reece and myself. After a fun night out in Limerick, we spent Sunday getting lunch in the city and enjoying nice weather by the Shannon River. My favorite part of spending time with other scholars is hearing about their experiences wherever they are located. While we all have Sport Changes Life to thank for being in Ireland, our experiences within the country are completely unique. It is interesting to hear about the different aspects of their day to day lives with regards to school, outreach, and basketball. The five of us had a great weekend and I am excited to make it over to their neck of the woods in December!
This weekend my club team played Templeogue, and to be honest we had a very tough loss. After the game was finished, my teammates and I had a difficult time coming up with words to say because no one had a good game and we all felt so defeated. It was pretty discouraging, but when we finally came up with a way to verbalize our issues and start to create solutions it made me feel positive about the future. One of my old coaches used to say that basketball was a game of runs, and whoever had more won the game. As simple as it sounds, it is so real because every team faces lapses within the game but it is the team who is able to persevere through the lows to come out on the other side as the victor. With all of that in mind, I am looking forward to getting better as a team this week in practice and looking inwards to see what I can do to become a better teammate and individual player. It is also moments like this in basketball that I remind myself why I am in Ireland. Going undefeated the whole season and breezing through every game would be great, but at the end of the day I am not just a basketball player, I am a Victory Scholar. So when things are not going my way on the court, I remind myself that I am here to raise the aspirations of young people in Ireland. As long as I can confidently say that I am accomplishing that, then I will continue to hold my head high and turn each difficult moment into a learning experience. I am excited to get better as a team in the weeks to come and hopefully turn our weaknesses into strengths, and more importantly, I will continue to approach each day with a positive mindset.
