I Believe in Perseverence You can Achieve

A man once persevered through difficult times while having no limbs; he became an incredible athlete and a very successful person. This story inspired me. My belief is that with perseverance you can achieve

Yesterday November 16, 2008, I was in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania for a lacrosse tournament. It was 36, degrees windy and snowing at some parts. Everyone was cold tired and exhausted. We were all tired of playing and wanted to go home. We were in our 3rd game that day when the score was tied 4-4. There was 30 seconds left on the clock when the other team turned over the ball. We were going down field on a breakaway, when someone tripped one of our guys. We started out of the box with 8 seconds left. My teammate James had the ball and he was running putting moves on people. He is running toward the inside toward the goal 2 seconds left, he is hit. But he persevered as he was hit and with all his strength he shot the ball bottom right, right through the goalies legs. There was 0.2 seconds left on the clock. Without that extra effort, we might not have won.

After that game, we had an hour and a half to warm up and get ready for our next game, which we won by 3. But then we had a game right after that which we won but barely. The other team had the ball and they were driving down field. I was playing defense against this kid and his teammate passed him the ball. So he tried driving on me but I hit him pushing him back and knocking the ball loose, immediately I picked it up looked down field and passed to my teammate Sean he ran down with 30 seconds remaining passed it to James who passed it to my other teammate Scott, who shot right passed the goalie. The score was 6 to 5 us. They then got the ball and tried to score but we stopped them.

The next and final game, I remember seeing 35 degrees, snow piling down on us getting in our helmets and eyes. The team we were going against was named Seneca Area; no one knew where that was though. But we started out the game losing 2-0. The games were 30 minutes running clock. Our coach had called a timeout and we all huddled in close. I remember he said “Don’t give up you guys, we still half fifteen minutes left and I know we can pull it off. Just think when we are done with this game we can all go home and rest”. I think everyone took that into deep thought, because after that we all turned on. We had two goals back to back within two minutes, one in the 10th minute and another in the 7th minute. The game wound down and we became victorious

We all persevered, and look at what happened; we swept the tournament 5-0. Team Burning River was ice cold and ready to get out Pittsburgh. But of course our coach had to see us before we left, he said “This is what happens when you don’t give up, you guys were down 2-0 and came back and won 4-2. You kept them scoreless after two goals, and you won the tournament, great job today, now go home.” We all said our goodbyes to our teammates hopefully seeing them soon, and we were out of that place like a frightened cat in a room full of mean dogs. I’ll say this again, my belief is with perseverance you can achieve.