My second year at Pellissippi, I decided to reestablish the connection with my passion. I found a great community college in Hutchinson, Kansas. The college had a great football team that I wanted to try out for. So in the blink of an eye I transferred, packed my things, and started my journey. As I entered my first day in the Hutchinson Kansas Community College, I had a feeling of great accomplishment as I achieved the one thing that nobody thought I could accomplish: I left home. One of my biggest let downs in my life was when I went to Hutchinson College and tried to join their team.
On the first day, I decided I needed to look for the head coach of the Hutchinson football team. He was gone on a recruiting trip and one of his assistants told me that he would be back in a few days and to come back next week so I said, “Okay, I will be back next week to talk to the head coach.” My body felt on fire and my head felt like it was boiling with excitement that I would have a chance to play on the college football team and show people what I got. I knew it would not be easy and was going to take every bit of my energy and everything I had just to do this. I trained so hard that I trained like I was trying out for an NFL team.
I knew that this coach would not give me anything. On Monday, I would show him that I could play and would be good and that it would be best to have me on his team. Monday came around after class and I went to the Field house to see the coach. I started to feel a cold breeze go down my back and that did not feel too good. It felt like it would suffocate me and I felt fear. My heart started beating like it was in a race and I told myself I needed to get it together. God gave me this chance to do what I love best and my family and friends believed in me back home and I did not want to let them down.
When the coach came out, I looked at him with fire in my eyes because I wanted him to see that I wanted to play and I would do anything it took to do it. The coach told me that even though I could do it, he had not taken me. I asked him to just give me a chance to prove it and he told me I had a month to get ready for a test to see if I could play. For a month and a half, I trained to get myself ready for this try out that I knew I had to be ready for if I wanted to make this team. As I went to see the coach, I felt a little scared and my stomach felt like it just dropped 1000 miles but that fear quickly went away. The coach was in his office he told me to sit down and I asked him how I did? He said not so good and I asked him what do you mean? The coach said, “Well, you don’t have the necessary skills to play at this level, yet.” I was taken aback as he told me that he did not think I would ever reach this level. I felt really bad because I felt that all the things that people were telling me were wrong. I left his office feeling disappointed and like I blew my one and only chance. I ran back to the dorm room and called my mama and told her what happened. She told me to keep it up and that I was not a failure. You did your best and that is all I can ask for me and that is all you can ask for yourself.
She also told me stay, finish up. When you come back home we will figure this out and that’s what I did. I stayed at Hutchinson Kansas and finished out the school year. When the school year was over, I went back home. I do not feel too badly because I made some incredible friends and I passed almost all my classes and I was also ready go home so I went back home. I felt so good to be back home.This paper was a real tough one for me to write because it is hard remembering failures in your life. There were some good things out of this trip to Kansas. I left home, made some friends and then came back home. This trip taught me a lot about myself. This failure until this day still haunts me and sometimes I wonder if I am ever going to get over it but I know one day I will. It’s just going to take more time but I feel like I became a much stronger person and it is likely when I go away from home again that I will not miss my parents so much. Like people say, “There is nothing like home cooking.”