Overcoming Adversity Essay

708 Words3 Pages
The Life of a Student-Athlete I always thought, I Michael Jordan was the smartest person in my middle school and high school class. I really didn’t have to work hard and was able to get good grades without putting forth a lot of effort. My personal saying was that if I do enough to get at least a passing grade I will be cool with it. I had been successful following this belief system for years, and then, came my junior year in high school. My experiences as a junior changed my entire outlook on my role as a student athlete and caused me to reevaluate my perspective on the things that were important to me. When school started on August 26, and all my teachers began to give daily quizzes based on the summer readings, I knew I was in trouble. I started to fall behind due to the amount of time required to complete each assignment, and I had to complete it for all four of my classes. I knew I wasn’t off to a good start of the school year. I was told that when you become a junior that’s when everything starts to get harder and you have to buckle down meaning no time for friends and really no weekend because it was going to require a lot of work, but I was sure that if I got through middle school, 9th and 10th grade that it would be no different than any other grade level class that I had taken already and passed. I was receiving an assignment in all classes to complete during the summer. I started the work, but it was so boring that I never finished the work. As time went on, my grades affected me, so I had to get tutoring if I wanted to be able to play football in the upcoming season. As I spent more time trying to bring up my grade in one class, my grades began to suffer in my other classes. I decided to make a drastic change. I needed to quit going to football workouts which takes a lot of my studying and homework time, so that I can focus on my classes. At the time,
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