Getting Ready for My High School Athletic CareerAs the school year came to a close, I knew I had my work cut out for me. Sophomore year is a big year, since there are new freshmen coming in trying to take your spot, athletes get lost in the system, and things start to get serious. Many of my freshman teammates would quit at this point, unable to handle the pressure and stress of high school basketball.
Sophomore year is when recruiting gets serious, too. If a player just appears on a college’s radar senior year, they’ll question that player’s ability and skill set. But if a college has been watching that player for years, they’ll get to know their game and their lifestyle. Having “upside” or “potential” is a great label, especially if you’ve been consistently improving for the past few years. Nike recently started a “Summer is Serious” ad campaign. The reason is because during the summer, there are major tournaments all across the country. It’s a feeding frenzy for recruiting and rankings, with typical recruiting websites getting over a million views per month over this time period. Also, this is when many athletes receive scholarships from schools. When the school year finally ended, I took a break for a few days but then started my summer workouts. Nearly every day, I’d put my ball in my bag, run the 1.5 miles to the courts, and do my workout. A main staple of these workouts was full court defensive slides. They consisted of zig-zagging from one end of the court to the other, acting like I was playing defense on a player. I loved doing them because nobody else did them. In my entire life, I never saw anybody willingly do full court defensive slides without a trainer or coach screaming at them to do it. I learned at an early age that if you do what everybody else does, you’re going to get what everybody else gets. I always prided myself in doing the thing that other people wouldn’t do. This was Getting Ready for My High School Athletic Career. |
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