“Hi, Impact”
Growing up my family didn’t have a lot of money I’m sure many of you can relate, my mother and grandma immigrated from Portugal and worked long hours at minimum wage jobs.
I always loved going outside to play sports especially soccer, I was really good at it too, much better than my friends who were all playing on club teams. Unfortunately, soccer was cheap but not cheap enough for my families income.
Registration and cleats were about 100 dollars at the time. I knew it was out of the question so I fell for a game that only needed a pair of shoes and beat up ball and it was free. With a hoop that was on every corner of the neighborhood, I fell in love with the game of basketball.
In came high school, all those years prior playing and shooting a basketball, I really didn’t know what I was doing. I was just a mediocre shooter who had no handle. Up until that point I was never coached by a good coach who knew what he was doing. These were all those volunteers that understand the rules and knew a few drills and god bless them for giving their time to us. But I still sucked.
The difference between me and you is that I know the ball is going in but you think the ball is going in.
~Elias Veiera~
The quote above means to me that if you don’t think every shot you take is going in then you haven’t practiced enough consistently.
So before it was too late, I decided to work my butt off my senior year of high school. I wanted to be the best shooter in the city, so I set out to save my money and buy a hoop and put it in my backyard on the grass and shot 500 shots a day along with playing pick up games every day at the YMCA while studying players moves and adding them to my own game.
My senior year approaches, my hard work pays off. I had a great season, many people couldn’t believe how good I became, I was complimented often. It felt great, t just goes to show what one summer can do for your game.
After high school, I decided to start by assistant coaching and getting an idea of what coaching was like. I was really young and was more of a player-coach. I still played ball myself and enjoyed researching and buying every book, video, and device on the market about basketball. Plus I was in the gym playing and doing drills with the team.
At that time, I also became obsessed with increasing my vertical and bought every program and device in that area to increase my vertical jump so I can dunk. Look out for some reviews coming soon.
At this moment I feel I have a wealth of knowledge and information to share about the game of basketball, I’m in the position to have the opportunity to write about it every day and I’m loving it. I have coached and played basketball for many years, and now that I am able to write about it I feel like that kid again walking past his friends playing soccer in the field bouncing his ball heading to the courts where it all started.
Contact info: bballword@gmail.com