Dear 13-year-old Joey,
You are about to go into high school where you think you are going to thrive on one thing then surprisingly must invest into something else.
You are entering a new high school with new people you have never met you are about to see new things.
You have never seen, and you will be doing things you have never done before, and added on to all of this you will have to sacrifice your freshmen and most of your sophomore year to covid.
Where people will not know when it will end how we will find a cure or when we will see our loved ones again.
Lucky for you, you will have gone to O’Dea Highschool where they can do online school where you can still meet new friends see your teachers without a mask and get the great O’Dea education that you were looking for.
This will go on like I said for about a year and a half you will have missed out on all the fun freshmen and sophomore traditions here at O’Dea.
You will have missed the chance to be in mentor group for a year in a half and most importantly you will miss out on meeting the upper classmen and cheering them on their journey to the state championship.
Trust me, I have not told you the worst thing yet.
You will go through your first year smoothly. You will have worked your butt off to get to where you are now.
When springtime comes around your first year you will be ready to do what you have waited your whole life to do and that is the put on the O’Dea jersey and play for the Irish baseball team.
You have played 13 years of baseball you have all the knowledge a little 13-year-old can get. You worked your ass off in the offseason to get the opportunity to tryout.
You will enter your first day of tryouts with a positive mindset and you will have all the conferences in the world. Your first day of tryouts did not go so well.
You missed a couple of grounders; you popped up a cold of pitches and you did not try your hardest and that is what the coach’s utility saw in you.
They saw a little 13-year-old boy who was not ready for high school ball.
Fast forward to the final day of tryouts, you feel optimistic, and you are confident in getting a spot on the first-year team. You say thank you to the coaches and run to mom and dad and say,
“I think I made it.”
Little do you know you go home shower, eat dinner, and you go check your email to see if you made it.
You go out into the living room where mom, dad, and mom greet you has grandma and grandpa on the phone waiting to hear the news.
You open the email and in the first sentence your heart drops you relies on you have let your family down.
You start crying you run to your mom and go into her arms; you feel embarrassed you feel dissatisfied.
You are upset and so are your parents. You go into your room and do not come out till the next morning where you skip all your online classes, and you go back to bed.
You do not want to see anyone; you do not want to be seen by anyone you are ashamed of yourself and wat you have done.
You have worked your whole eighth grade summer to be the best baseball player you can be.
Although you might think that it is over, and you have given up and mom and dad will not give up on the dream of playing for O’Dea.
You will work even harder every day in the summer, you will also be taking part in football workouts at 8 in the morning where you will focus on getting better every day.
You will have played over ninety games that summer going into your sophomore year you will have had game experience and you have built your body to be able to compete at a high school level.
You will be mentally and physically prepared to go to “war” for that spot on the team.
Winter sports season wraps up and you are ready for baseball tryouts, you are going to make the team you tell yourself.
First day of tryouts go smooth, not a worry in the world.
You hit well, you field good, and you even steal on a varsity catcher.
Ultimately you believe that out of all the kids deserve a spot because you show how much you have grown.
Later that night you and your family will be talking about your day when you get an e-mail with a list of names on the team for the 2022-2023 season.
You scan the list up and down back and forth and yet still no Joey Meats this will be your lowest point of your high school career.
You've never been this depressed before all the hard work dedication effort, mental and physical aspects put into Baseball, 13 years of training, 13 years of knowledge all down the drain.
You sit in your room, and you consider whether I stay at this school that's cut me twice now or do I go play for another school.
You look at the pros and cons of staying and leaving but ultimately your life is more than baseball you decided to reach out to a couple friends who played lacrosse.
You've never seen this board you've never played this sport you've never watched the sport, but you tell yourself hey if I'm not doing baseball what am I worth.
You've always been a good leader you've led in middle school and now you're leading in high school.
You e-mail the lacrosse coach asking if they need a team manager, The lacrosse coach lets you be the team manager for your sophomore year.
You ultimately fall in love you meet new people you meet upperclassmen and kids in your grade that you've never thought you'd meet before it's kind of like a second family.
You get asked to go on the San Diego trip with the team and you feel loved on a team that you never thought you'd be a part of.
Looking forward to you being on this lacrosse managing team for now three years and you've had friends come out of lacrosse for three years now, guys you never thought you'd be friends with are your friends.
New coaches you'd never thought would say “hey you're a great leader kid.”
Now you're in your senior year and you're playing lacrosse for a team that you never even knew of when you came in freshman year.
You're going to look back on your time today and say.
Wow, I'm glad I didn't transfer sophomore year because life is bigger than baseball.
Now that you have a different pathway your junior and senior year, you'll think.
What else can I do?
Your junior year during winter season you will take a video production class that also does Sports broadcasting you've never done sports broadcasting you've never had an interest in sports broadcasting until you've tried it out your first game is versus Seattle prep your rival.
You put on that headset, you introduce yourself and you know calling the game, then you realize.
This is something you have a passion for, this is something you want your next step of life to be, this is something that you can make a career out of.
So, you joined the digital media club, you started talking to the teacher, you started engaging yourself more in the class.
You know Joey life might throw obstacles in your way but as someone said to me.
It's how hard you can get hit and still move forward.
Joey looking back on your four years at O’Dea you realize what a community you have become a part of you will realize you want your kids to come here when you're older, you will realize that transferring would not have made your life better.
You would have realized baseball is in your main career, staying at O’Dea will help you find yourself, your community and the sense of who you want to be.
Good luck with your future endeavors.
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