I had just transferred from my old elementary school. I didn’t know anybody, I was shy, and I didn’t know what they would think of me. Would they think of me as a loser, or a nice new kid? I wanted to make a good first impression so I tried to be someone that I wasn’t. And when I realized that my classmates were so nice to me I just started acting like myself and people drew closer and closer to me and I ended up being good friends with everybody in my class.

As my first week of fourth grade coming to a close, I heard that there was baseball sign ups at school. I was not familiar with baseball at the time but I just wanted to give it a shot to see if I like it. All I had for a glove was a old plastic glove my mom gave me for my sixth birthday. As I showed up at my first practice I thought that we could wear anything that we wanted because it was just practice. But everyone was wearing a hat, belt, shirt, baseball pants, and cleat. And I showed up in a t-shirt and sweats, I looked like a total outsider. When it was time to play catch to warm our arms up I did not know how to catch or throw the ball. My coach told me to put four fingers on the seams of the ball, lift your arm up and throw the ball. My coach was there to help me every step of the way. I felt a little discouraged because the other kids didn’t need help from coach. They were a lot better than I was because they had been playing since they were toddlers. They were catching the balls and throwing it like they were pros.

Next on our practice agenda was fielding. I had no clue on how to field a ground ball. As it was my turn to field, my coach hit it on the barrel of the bat and it was like a routine ground ball for me now, but back the I was scared of the ball. I took one right in the shin and I cried. I felt like I never wanted to play baseball ever again. I wanted to quit right then and there. My coach took me aside to go check on me and see if I was ok. He told me “I’ve missed over 100 ground balls in my life, and it’s ok if you make mistakes just never stop trying because you’re going to get another coming your way and you have to ready.” After the pain went away and the embarrassment out of my mind. I closed my eyes took a deep breath and just relaxed. Then I thought in my mind that this game was hard enough and you don’t want to make it harder getting frustrated and sad. When it was my turn I took another breath, he hit it hard right at me and I just put my glove down and it just went in like magic.

I was so excited. I thought that I couldn’t do it but then again, if you miss an opportunity don’t put your head down and give up. That’s the fuel to just keep on trying so that you could get better.