personal

As the ball falls into striking range the blockers' prepared to make their defensive stand. As the balls falls into striking range, I choose to temporarily defy gravity. Once the ball and I have reached the perfect point of synchronization, I swing. I swing with speed, precision, power. I blast the ball clean through the outstretched arms of the befuddled defense, to add another kill to my stat sheet, another pain of discouragement in the hearts of my opponents.
I have always seen myself as a basketball player until my junior year when i gave volleyball a try. I had never played past a few periods of boredom in middle school PE, but once I saw a friend playing, I noticed that it looked like fun, so I tried out. At first I figured I could just use volleyball to expand my physical abilities so I could jump higher in basketball, and to maintain my physical fitness since I had completed my physical education requirement. With those two goals in mind I went to the first of three tryouts with a heavily nonchalant attitude, primarily because I zero serious volleyball before walking into the gymnasium, and despite my strong desire to make the varsity squad, I would have had no problem with being placed on junior varsity. The morning the final cut list was posted I walked up to my new coach by the name of Jean Morgan and told her in a almost whispered voice- clearly overwhelmed with excitement - "I made var."
By "making var," I joined a brotherhood of guys with one common goal that our social, racial, and religious differences could not divert, and that was a championship. At first the idea of such a feat sounded ridiculous after we lost our first preseason match to Los Angeles Jordan (who became a rival of sorts), we were devastated but not diverted, that loss was exactly what we needed to take in account how good we really were in comparison to how good we thought we were, then we had to adjust ourselves to go from less than what we thought, to better than anyone thought we could ever be, and once we attained that level , no one could stop us.
After our loss to Jordan, when continued through a season fueled on blood, sweat, and tears, to make playoffs just to have another "heat check," but afterward we went on to win the CIF Invitational Championship, and set the scene for another delightfully challenging season, as not the unknown school, with a couple of good player, but as defending champions, and now that I am a senior player, I have to step to the net with more intensity than ever.