Remember the Words: You Gotta Keep Grinding

I've had a ball in my hand since I could remember.

I first started playing competitively when I was six. I've experienced alot since then. And since I began my highschool career, I've worn three different jerseys within that span of four years. I've played on a team that won only one game all season long, and I've been on a national championship team.

Basketball was and is my passion.

But I wouldn't have been there if it weren't for one person. One who really pushed and groomed me as a player. My dad. He has always been there. We've put thousands of hours in the gym together. When I was younger, he taught me the fundamentals. As I grew up, he taught me the best way to utilize what skill and talent I did have, to be able to compete against much quicker and more talented players. He not only taught me how to play the game, but he taught me how to play the game. How to play the game with character, as a godly young man should. Like I said earlier, he was there for me since the start. Even if he was deployed and halfway around the world, he would listen to me vent after a frustrating game.

I must confess that there was a time during this season when basketball became difficult to enjoy. The team was struggling. We had quite abit of talent and alot of potential, but we weren't playing as a cohesive unit. We were playing down to many of the teams we faced. Then, players started to leave, and we went through a period where we were struggling to find our identity as a team. And before you knew it, it was the middle of January. I was starting to wonder,"Isn't this when you want to start seeing progress?" I was starting to become stressed, which rarely ever happened to me when I was playing basketball. My dad told me to wait and hang in there, or I might regret checking out. And boy, he was right. There came a point in the season when something finally clicked. And it was a fantastic feeling.

My dad said that, "Once you play pure basketball, you won't want to go back to playing streetball. Once you play basketball as a unit on defense and offense.. there's nothing quite like it."

I can now understand what he meant. It really seemed to click in the second half of our first game at Regionals. We were actually trailing at the half by 10, but then a switch was flipped. For the following stretch of 8 1/2 games we would only lose two. And that was because we only had a 6-7 man rotation, and therefore our legs just ran out of gas. But in this stretch, we held teams to under the average of 40 points per game. It was one heck of a ride.

To my teammates and coaches,

I just want to thank you. I've never been part of team like this. I wished we could've played longer, because I still don't think we reached our ceiling, even after winning the Championship. I won't ever forget what coach kept on drilling into us: "Keep grinding it." When we learned to grind away on offense, and lock down on defense, we were unstoppable. Thank you all.

Keep grinding.