Goals

My goal is to play college football, but if that never happens everything I've done to try to achieve that goal has made me a better athlete, student, and person. Football has had a huge impact on my life. From my first practice in youth football I have loved the sport, giving up other sports to focus on football. I play the game, study the game, and live for the game. The lessons I have learned from football have made me a better student, kept me from getting into trouble, and I've met some great people through football. I have learned many lessons from football like the value of a strong work ethic, dedication to teammates, and how to deal with defeat and success.

Hard work may seem like an obvious lesson, but the rewards of hard work are not always positive. It's weird to say that doing something you love is work, but I do work hard at football. Every single day, through Covid closures, pouring rain, or smoking hot days, I am working on football. During the off season going into my junior year I worked and worked, no matter what conditions or what my plans where. I saw major improvements as I continued to work, and getting better motivated me to work harder. Unfortunately, my hard work is often looked at as something negative. Teammates think I make them look bad for not working harder, coaches think I'm showing off, and friends think I'm too busy to go out with them. My work ethic has cost me a lot of friends, but football is what I love to do and with it I bring a strong passion to my team, that I hope helps elevate everyone.

Teammates on the field should always have each others backs. However, being the only freshman on the JV team, and then being the only sophomore on Varsity, any bond with my teammates was only on the field. I played on baseball and basketball teams with some great teammates, but my first two years on high school football was rough. I just kept looking forward to my junior year and having classmates on my same team. Having classmates on the team was great, but the seniors were still rough on me. But knowing what it is like to be treated poorly has made me a better teammate, and I will always be a good teammate, reaching out to the guy may have had a rough game or who is new to the team.

Learning how to win and lose might sound stupid, but it really is important. One of my top goals going into this season was to beat Marin Catholic. We had a great game against MC but we were down, and I had a chance of leading the team back and beating them, however, I came up short and threw a pick to lose the game. I felt like I had let the team down and I wished I could take that play back and get one more chance at it. I had to learn to move on and make peace with what had happened because I had the rest of the season to give everything I had. We went on and did something that no other football team at San Marin has ever done, we won a State Championship. But winning comes with its own lessons. Sure, people were happy that we won, but they only really cared for a few days, and they want everyone to move on too. In my head I still enjoy that victory, that excitement, but in every thing else I do being humble about that win is what is expected. Failures people will throw at me forever, success only lasts a short time.