Overcoming Obstacles
11/25/2019 1:45:00 PM | Blog, Tomorrow's Leaders
Overcoming Obstacles
Overcoming obstacles. Trusting the process. Patience.
These are all words that describe my athletic career and my circuitous route to Rice University's basketball team. Every single season, from high school to college, I've had to fight for every minute of playing time. My freshman year of high school, I stood 5' 8", maybe 130 pounds soaking wet. Despite being a small and frail kid, I overcame my lack of physicality with my skillset. Even still, I spent my first two years on varsity riding the bench, waiting for a chance to play, which quickly became frustrating.
My coaches wouldn't play me because there was always another kid on the team who was a bigger guard, someone who could hold up better physically on varsity, until my junior year. I hit a growth spurt and shot up to 6' 2" before the start of basketball season.
As I grew, so did my confidence and my abilities. With a few extra inches of height, my game transformed and I was able to play basketball on a different level. My confidence manifested itself on the court and I became a new basketball player.
I ended up averaging 21.7 points per game as a junior. Yet, even as I took my game to the next level, I was dealing with turf toe in both of my big toes. Before every game, my routine included wrapping both my toes in tape and taking two Advil to tolerate the pain.
For a high school junior, it was a difficult situation to play with the pain. But I decided to push through and play injured because of the alternatives.
Before the season, as graduation and college and the future started to loom in view, my father had told me, "If you do not get a scholarship in either academics or athletics, then you will be going to the Army."
I wasn't going to the Army. I wanted to go to college and play basketball. That became my motivation for succeeding.
The season went by. I put up great numbers, but I wasn't receiving any attention from college coaches. Of course, it didn't help that I was just 6' 2", 150 lbs and playing shooting guard, which, according to most colleges, is too small to play. And then there were the coaches who thought my numbers were inflated against poor competition. That was extremely frustrating, to be told that all of my hard work and success was artificial or didn't matter. My dad reminded me that I should be focused on myself and trust all the hard work that we both knew I was putting in. My time would come, my dad said.
I responded by working like I was still a bench player, searching for all the playing time I could get. Because I was. I was striving for something greater and beyond high school basketball; I wanted to play in college. The spring of my junior year was when things started to break my way. I received an invitation to the NC Top 80 camp in North Carolina, one of the most prestigious basketball camps in the nation.
It was a chance to prove myself against the best players in North Carolina and an opportunity to showcase my skills against top-flight competition. Heading into the camp, I was nervous. Doubts and questions started to creep into my head, trying to throw me off my game. But then I remembered the scouts and what they had said about my competition. Remembering their doubts fueled me.
By the time the camp ended, I was the second-leading scorer, behind only Coby White (UNC, #7 overall draftee by the Chicago Bulls). Calls started rolling in at every hour in the day.
My first call from Rice came the day after the camp. My mom got crazy excited because of Rice's phenomenal reputation for academics, something that both of us valued in my college decision. The summer went on and I received a few more D-1 offers, but I quickly knew that Rice was the place for me. I committed at the end of the summer before my senior year.
I knew that Rice would be able to provide me with the best of both worlds, playing basketball at a high-level and attending a world-class university in preparation for life beyond basketball. Through my last two high school years, I grew almost three inches, up to nearly 6'5", a good and functional height for a collegiate shooting guard. But I still weighed less than the ideal weight for a collegiate basketball player, something that my new teammates were quick to exploit when I showed up for summer school and summer practices.
Switching from high school to Rice was a shock; I went from being a big fish in a pond to a lake with a lot of bigger fish. More and more doubts about my ability to measure up and succeed collegiately crept in. Every day, I reminded myself to "Trust the process" and "Run my own race".
By the time the season started, my weight was up to 185 lbs which was a tremendous help in dealing with college-level athletes. I was still very skinny, but I was now strong enough to put up a fight and hold my own.
My first season at Rice was full of ups and downs. I played inconsistent minutes, playing anywhere from 5 minutes to more than 20 in a game. And beyond playing less than I wanted, Rice's academic rigor was getting to me and I was struggling mentally with the compounding effects of everything at once.
I overcame these struggles simply by talking to people and asking them for advice.
Asking for help and advice is something I've always struggled with; I always wanted to do everything on my own, without help. But that was before I got to Rice. It's safe to say that you cannot do everything alone at Rice, not while playing a sport. You have to use the resources available to you or you will get overwhelmed will all the demands that come with being a student-athlete. That was a lesson that I really needed to learn during my freshman year and life got a little bit easier once I understood that.
While I was struggling, my head coach, Scott Pera, gave me a piece of advice that has resonated with me since. He told me to "control what you can control" and that if you can't control a situation, you shouldn't be reacting to it.
So, I stopped worrying about my fluctuating playing time or how my teachers weren't teaching the material the way I wanted; I just focused on myself and the work that I was putting in daily.
All that because I worked on the things that I had control over.
My whole life, I've been motivated by many different things. Scouts have doubted my size which pushed me to grow my skills. My father gave me an ultimatum, "scholarship or army," and I responded by getting a basketball scholarship to one of the premier colleges in the nation.
Basketball has provided me with so many opportunities to grow and succeed because of, not in spite of, the obstacles that have been in my path.
Overcoming obstacles. Trusting the process. Patience.
These are all words that describe my athletic career and my circuitous route to Rice University's basketball team. Every single season, from high school to college, I've had to fight for every minute of playing time. My freshman year of high school, I stood 5' 8", maybe 130 pounds soaking wet. Despite being a small and frail kid, I overcame my lack of physicality with my skillset. Even still, I spent my first two years on varsity riding the bench, waiting for a chance to play, which quickly became frustrating.
My coaches wouldn't play me because there was always another kid on the team who was a bigger guard, someone who could hold up better physically on varsity, until my junior year. I hit a growth spurt and shot up to 6' 2" before the start of basketball season.
As I grew, so did my confidence and my abilities. With a few extra inches of height, my game transformed and I was able to play basketball on a different level. My confidence manifested itself on the court and I became a new basketball player.
I ended up averaging 21.7 points per game as a junior. Yet, even as I took my game to the next level, I was dealing with turf toe in both of my big toes. Before every game, my routine included wrapping both my toes in tape and taking two Advil to tolerate the pain.
For a high school junior, it was a difficult situation to play with the pain. But I decided to push through and play injured because of the alternatives.
Before the season, as graduation and college and the future started to loom in view, my father had told me, "If you do not get a scholarship in either academics or athletics, then you will be going to the Army."
I wasn't going to the Army. I wanted to go to college and play basketball. That became my motivation for succeeding.
The season went by. I put up great numbers, but I wasn't receiving any attention from college coaches. Of course, it didn't help that I was just 6' 2", 150 lbs and playing shooting guard, which, according to most colleges, is too small to play. And then there were the coaches who thought my numbers were inflated against poor competition. That was extremely frustrating, to be told that all of my hard work and success was artificial or didn't matter. My dad reminded me that I should be focused on myself and trust all the hard work that we both knew I was putting in. My time would come, my dad said.
I responded by working like I was still a bench player, searching for all the playing time I could get. Because I was. I was striving for something greater and beyond high school basketball; I wanted to play in college. The spring of my junior year was when things started to break my way. I received an invitation to the NC Top 80 camp in North Carolina, one of the most prestigious basketball camps in the nation.
It was a chance to prove myself against the best players in North Carolina and an opportunity to showcase my skills against top-flight competition. Heading into the camp, I was nervous. Doubts and questions started to creep into my head, trying to throw me off my game. But then I remembered the scouts and what they had said about my competition. Remembering their doubts fueled me.
By the time the camp ended, I was the second-leading scorer, behind only Coby White (UNC, #7 overall draftee by the Chicago Bulls). Calls started rolling in at every hour in the day.
My first call from Rice came the day after the camp. My mom got crazy excited because of Rice's phenomenal reputation for academics, something that both of us valued in my college decision. The summer went on and I received a few more D-1 offers, but I quickly knew that Rice was the place for me. I committed at the end of the summer before my senior year.
I knew that Rice would be able to provide me with the best of both worlds, playing basketball at a high-level and attending a world-class university in preparation for life beyond basketball. Through my last two high school years, I grew almost three inches, up to nearly 6'5", a good and functional height for a collegiate shooting guard. But I still weighed less than the ideal weight for a collegiate basketball player, something that my new teammates were quick to exploit when I showed up for summer school and summer practices.
Switching from high school to Rice was a shock; I went from being a big fish in a pond to a lake with a lot of bigger fish. More and more doubts about my ability to measure up and succeed collegiately crept in. Every day, I reminded myself to "Trust the process" and "Run my own race".
By the time the season started, my weight was up to 185 lbs which was a tremendous help in dealing with college-level athletes. I was still very skinny, but I was now strong enough to put up a fight and hold my own.
My first season at Rice was full of ups and downs. I played inconsistent minutes, playing anywhere from 5 minutes to more than 20 in a game. And beyond playing less than I wanted, Rice's academic rigor was getting to me and I was struggling mentally with the compounding effects of everything at once.
I overcame these struggles simply by talking to people and asking them for advice.
Asking for help and advice is something I've always struggled with; I always wanted to do everything on my own, without help. But that was before I got to Rice. It's safe to say that you cannot do everything alone at Rice, not while playing a sport. You have to use the resources available to you or you will get overwhelmed will all the demands that come with being a student-athlete. That was a lesson that I really needed to learn during my freshman year and life got a little bit easier once I understood that.
While I was struggling, my head coach, Scott Pera, gave me a piece of advice that has resonated with me since. He told me to "control what you can control" and that if you can't control a situation, you shouldn't be reacting to it.
So, I stopped worrying about my fluctuating playing time or how my teachers weren't teaching the material the way I wanted; I just focused on myself and the work that I was putting in daily.
| That was a big turning point for me and, after that, things started to improve. By the conference tournament, I was the team's third-leading scorer in conference play and I was getting the playing time and minutes I desired. My grades had stabilized and I had begun to figure out what I needed to do academically. |
All that because I worked on the things that I had control over.
My whole life, I've been motivated by many different things. Scouts have doubted my size which pushed me to grow my skills. My father gave me an ultimatum, "scholarship or army," and I responded by getting a basketball scholarship to one of the premier colleges in the nation.
Basketball has provided me with so many opportunities to grow and succeed because of, not in spite of, the obstacles that have been in my path.
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