Dream Catchers Research Paper

December 3 2015 was the Newton Railers seventh grade basketball team second away game. I was waiting all day for the basketball game it seemed like the day was endless. Finally 2:50 came up on the clock to let me know it was time to leave class and get ready to get on the bus. I got all my gear and got on the bus. I put my headphones on a got pumped for our game.

Today we are going to review the book called Coach Wooden The 7 Principles That Shaped His Life and will change yours By Pat Williams. The Book Coach Wooden is about his life and the stuff he did to get where he is at right now, Coach Wooden has said a lot of inspirational quotes that have changed and shaped a lot of people's lives. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was one of Coach Wooden's players and Coach had a valuable message for Kareem that made him choose to go to UCLA to play basketball for Coach Wooden and that message was Basketball is temporary but knowledge is forever. Kareem said that was a moment that changed his life forever. One of Coach Wooden’s famous quotes is The best competition I have is against myself to become better.

Carter said to me on the way back into the dugout, “I’m as nervous as a fireman on his first call.” I said, “Don’t be. We are going to win, then advance, and the win state.” The game finally started. We were the home team, so we started in the field first.

At that time there was a head coach and I served as the assistant. Halfway through the season the coach stepped down putting me in charge of forty girls not that much younger than I. It was difficult to gain respect from the older girls because they had cheered with me the year prior, and saw me at the same level as them. I knew I had what it took to be a good coach for all of these girls, but I had to work hard to prove that to them, and that’s exactly what I did. I was confident and believed in myself enough that they began to look at me as an authority figure, and we had a successful

Trust your teammates since they will fight for you and the rest of the team.” I am tying this quote to football but it can be used in any team sport you are involved in. Football teaches character and that’s why I love it so much. I’ve learned so much about myself and how I want to live my life just from being in football. It was a dreadful freezing fall morning on November 7th

The influence of one person passed on to another is inevitable when it comes to life, but even more unavoidable when it extends to sports. College sports in fact have an impact on a mass majority of people, from spectators to players, these endeavors create hopes and dreams for any individual. Not only that, any heart strung story coming from sports gets plastered on media outlets so a greater population of people can also be influenced by a game, but I want to go further than that. Personally, I believe there is a greater meaning behind sports than for it just to be a pastime. There is a reason that the superior divisions of athletics are harder to reach than decades before because of the higher levels of knowledge that continue to be passed down from great coaches to greater players in a never ending cycle.

Despite the newspapers and previews saying we would not contend for the state title that year, I kept in my head that anything could happen. Going into the year I told our team “lets focus on what we can do to improve, and not worry about anyone else”. At the beginning, other teams were too strong for our inexperienced runners to compete with, but we didn’t change the focus. Practice after practice, I made sure we were doing everything we could to be at our best for the end of the year. I didn’t care what other teams were doing because we had no control over that.

My journey through tough hope has affected me in many ways like this one. When I didn 't make the baseball team I really wanted to make. I was really upset and mad with myself for not making the team. I didn 't practice hard enough to make the team.

The stands began to fill and it was time for the game to start and my team mates sat around me as me and the coach began our pregame speeches. Before every game I would give a speech and the thought of a good humorous speech always put a smile on their faces. I told the team “Listen boys we have spent the last six months busting our butts for this moment. This is where all the hard work pays off. Guys I don’t know about you

We all huddled up as a team and I delivered a speech that was one for the ages. We came out of that huddle with a fire inside of us and we came back to make the greatest comeback that this rivalry has ever seen. We were able to rally together because we planted the seeds of motivation long before the kickoff of that game…

It was a Fall night wear the stars were out and all you could ever do is hear coach yelling to stop moving away from our positions. That night we were training for a very important soccer tournament that was only a couple weeks away. Coach smith liked to win but i think what he liked most was that we tried our best. We were a very hard team to defeat but we had our moments where we would lose games by a landslide.

I am Jesus Vazquez and my struggles. I believe that my biggest achievements derive from my biggest failures. My struggles as a kid growing up without a father, an unemployed mother, no permanent home, all worked to shape both my character and I. Early on, I realized my hardships, and my struggles would always be a part of me, however it continued to be up to me how I would let them define me. One particular struggle for me growing up was soccer and along with it comes one of my most vivid memories that depict just how I learned to trust in my struggle. As the ball sailed way over the net, I lowered my head and slumped my shoulders as I jogged back to my position.

My teammates and coaches have made a huge impact on me as well. They taught me that if we truly wanted something we can only achieve it by working together. Teamwork is key in a group sport. If you all aren't working together it will be nearly impossible to get the job done.

They were able to relate to the one inch at a time proposition of pulling together to come out of the disarray the team was in. They were touched by his honesty and openness in the beginning of his speech, which was an attention getter, then intrigued by the challenge to sacrifice for the team and fight for the inches need to win and survive. The coach ended the speech with a summation of the team fighting for that inch together and then concluded with the question, “…now, what are you gonna do”. The inspired team then went on, played with their heart, and won the football game.

This moment will not define you. This moment will define us. We as a team have brought change and we must continue to bring this change even after we have stepped off of that field. I look around this room and I see faces that have changed so much in such a short time. You have all learned so much from not only each other, but from yourselves.