I have played a variety of sports all of my life, including baseball, golf, tennis, swimming & diving, basketball, and football. I was only in some of these sports for a short amount of time because I didn’t like the way that the sport was run. It doesn’t mean I hated the sport, but it was enough to keep me from wanting to join through the program again. Being a student and an athlete is difficult, because the workload can be a lot for anyone . I don’t necessarily feel like someone has to be in many sports to be considered an athlete, he just needs the passion for the game.

Ever since I have been a young kid, I have found an interest in any activity that requires physical skill. Naturally, I’m good at these sports, even if I have little experience with them. Junior year, for example, I got rookie of the year in tennis. Even in other sports, my mom would always tell me about someone who noticed how good I was at a sport. Then if I didn’t continue with the sport they would say how surprised they were that I didn’t, because of my potential for contribution to the team. I may have loved the sport, and continue to play it to this day, but more on my own time.

According to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, the definition of an athlete is “One who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina.” This is a concrete definition of an athlete, but it means something different to everyone. To me, being an athlete means having a passion for physical activity, no matter what it is you are doing. I take great seriousness with any sport that I play. I try as hard as I can to win and show what I can do. Honestly, I prefer gym classes, because it allows you to play a variety of sports, and all you do is play, there is not a whole lot of learning, you just get to go. I love team sports especially, because the class gets to do whay they choose for a game, and everyone wants to be there so everyone participates and makes it more competitive. I often surprise people on how fast I can pick up on sports because I haven’t done many sports through the school recently. I make sure that I stay in shape through other various workouts and sports outside of school, but people don’t see me doing this, which explains their reactions.
In my eyes, it’s the extra stress of school in association with a sport that has kept me from being in the activity. I can handle the tough practices, meets, and workouts alone, but when schoolwork is added into the factor, it becomes too much and it feels like many things are going on around me that I can’t deal with. It is a constant movement from dusk until dawn, which I don’t like, because I need some time to relax in the day, it’s what keeps me happy and sane. My grades showed this particularly with golf. We would have a meet basically every other day, in which we wouldn’t even go to school that day, and I had a lot of work to make up. It was a rough cycle, because I had to be there to learn the subject, but I had meet after meet.

I have such an interest in sports and physical activity, that as of now, I plan on going to college for exercise science and plan on doing something along the lines of a physical therapist. I am a good one on one type of conversator, and I like the satisfaction and gratitude of people when I help them. Doing this as a career will benefit me in a couple ways, because it will motivate me to workout and keep in shape, I will learn more about the anatomy of humans, which I can use to help someone if they are having medical problems, and I will also be motivated to be active in sports, because I enjoy a workout with a purpose.

Being an athlete puts a whole different perspective on life as a whole. The many mottos and mantras of each sport shows me new ways to look at things that motivate me to be better at the sport. I used one of these memories to help me get through the pain of getting a tattoo, which really helped me have a high tolerance physically and mentally. Sports are like school because of how much they they teach you in terms of values and goals. An example of one of these quotes is “One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than 50 teaching it” -Knute Rockne (100 Most Inspirational Quotes Of All Time). Sportsmanship is a big part of my fondness of sports. I define it as being respectful in victory and defeat. I will be polite to my opponents no matter how the game went or who won. It keeps it easier to deal with a loss this way, because my attitude towards the game doesn’t change. Of course I want to win, and I will do whatever I can to do so, but you can’t win them all. When I win, I tend to keep the celebration in my head for the most part, because I don’t want my celebrating to worsen the other person’s for losing.

In tennis junior year, I was in #2 singles and the other teams were better than us in general because they have larger schools and a bigger program for it. It was expected for us to lose as a team each time because we were pretty laid back. Individually people would have wins once and a while, but generally our ratios weren’t positive. Sometimes it would be frustrating for me, because I would do my best to try to keep up with my opponent or opponents depending on if I was in singles or doubles. On one home meet, I was matched up with my opponent who was about my skill level with his playing. We would trade points back and forth the whole time. We brought it to an overtime set, and I was getting into it. I eventually beat him, and I was ecstatic. All of my hard work paid off and I finally got a victory. I did’t burst out or do anything out of the ordinary. I just shook hands with the man and went back to my team who was happy for me. For some, it didn’t seem like I showed much excitement, but I was sure glad I came out victorious on the inside.

Being an athlete is not easy. If people want to be great at the sports they are in, they need to put in the time and effort. To achieve the greatest that an athlete can, one must be motivated and have a goal for himself. Without a goal, an athlete is a bullet without a target; it has a direction, but no real destination. The goal is what gives him the the motivation and strive to succeed. My goal for my tennis season was to win at least one match, and I did just that. The athlete must also be a competitor to rise above all others to reach his goal. I myself am very competitive, which as stated, motivates me to rise above what others achieve. I am not big into bragging much, I just let my performance show off for me.