Accomplishment that has changed me

Aaron Rodriguez

Accomplishment that has changed me

Winning a championship is the greatest experience in the world but it’s not the simple fact of holding a trophy over your head which makes it satisfying but all the work that is put into it to succeed, the brotherhood of picking each other up and making each other better that is what makes a championship satisfying. The road to success is never easy but for me not only was it hard but unexpected. My freshman year of high school I had tried out for the basketball team, unfortunately I had not made it. I had gone to the coach and asked him what I needed to work on, so I could be prepared for next year, but before we talked about that he had said that cutting me was a very hard decision to make. The road of playing had seemed to have come to an end however, it was not. One day walking down the halls some of the people who had made the team said the basketball coach wanted to talk to me. This was a nerve racking experience because I had no idea what he had to tell me since I had not been on the team. The coach had brought good news someone had quit the team and a spot was open. He asked if I wanted it. I was overjoyed with excitement not being able to feel my body almost in a state of floating. A second opportunity was given to me and I had intended to make it count. The practices were intense, most times I had messed up and the other player would yell at me. At first I had been slightly offended but after getting to know my teammates I had realized that that was just their passion for the game. Through the weeks and months I too had the same passion as my teammates. The passion and grit we showed in practice definitely translated into the games. Some games we would be up by 30 points and we would be playing as if we were down by 5 and 2 minutes to go. This was instilled by our coach he always said “don’t worry about the scoreboard just play the game”. Our coach would push us extremely hard in practice running us all day long. The practices seemed to be harder than the games some days I wouldn’t even think of doing homework because I was so tired. I still did though because that was something that was instilled in us by our coach, hard work. Hard work on the court and hard work in the classroom. The hard work that we did paid off when we won the European Championship. Winning the champions had great satisfaction but the greatest satisfaction was the hard work paying off and it has become a core value of mine that I intend to carry through the rest of my life.