Perseverance

In every sport, you need to keep working hard and have a good attitude towards anything that is difficult and very tiring. Sports is very humbling. In the book The Hoops Whisper, the author does not get any scholarships to any schools for basketball. Even though his basketball career is basically over he still runs and practices every day to get better. When he goes to college he gets a chance for a walk-on spot at a D-1 school and all his perseverance paid off. He did not make the team that year because the coach had promised 5 players a spot even before the tryout had started. After the tryout the coach comes up to him and tells him to keep practicing and that he would've been the best walk-on. "Despite the academic demands--or maybe because of them--I still skipped rope, ran sprints, and practiced every day on my own." (24)

"So there it was: I was the last player cut from walk-on tryouts at a major division I university." (26) This relates to me when I was done playing select basketball year-round in the 8th grade I thought that I was ready for high school hoops. I didn't practice a lot and then when the summer league tryouts came I got a wake-up call and I didn't make it. Then over the summer I started working again (really hard) and got better and made the normal season team in winter.
Now I don’t take making the team for granted. I still train and work-out outside of normal basketball practice with the hope of making varsity next year. Sometimes I get tired and it seems overwhelming, but I love the game and like the author that motivates me to keep working at it.




Have you ever hit a wall and had to persevere to get through the challenge?
Ravin, Idan. The Hoops Whisperer: On the Court and inside the Heads of Basketball's Best Players