KC Royals Charities Scholarship Essay

The most important leadership experience would have to be when I was nominated to represent the Boy’s Basketball team as part of a new group at my school called the Student Athletics Council. That entails that I have to speak on the Boy’s Basketball team’s behalf and talk about what is going on well and what could be improved in our athletic department. Over the years the Athletic Director has noticed that things in our department needed to be changed and created this group to turn our program around for the better. As I was selected for the Boy’s basketball team, I noticed that there wasn’t enough space for the boys to practice consistently in the gyms because of the other winter sports that had to practice indoors as well, which wasn’t an unpopular opinion because all of the other members of the SAC who represented a winter sport had the same issue. This led me to propose the idea of creating a schedule for each winter sports team so there could be ample opportunities for each team to practice their sport while giving them a consistent practice schedule so there was no confusion or incoordination. With this, our athletic director gave us the idea of the basketball teams going to different gyms around the city to practice, which we all agreed upon, but it would take some money to be raised in the department. After hearing this, I suggested that each sport come up with a way to fundraise to come up with money for the department. We decided to each run the concession stand at events at the school so we could all make money to practice elsewhere. It didn’t take long until we finally reached our goal amount of money and we were finally able to have extra spaces to practice. This experience was the most important leadership experience during high school because of the impact that it left on the entire school. With the use of the extra practice space, practices were more consistent, energetic, and fun because we didn’t have to worry about practice getting cut short or having to share gyms.

During this whole process, many things led me to realize how much work and effort goes into finding a solution for things that I want or need. The most important lesson that I learned is that most issues at school require funding. This made me realize that there is a need to know how to make money for goals that anyone may have so they can better themselves or their situations. As a student who is interested in finance, doing things based on monetary funding is very fascinating because I like visualizing how it helps out with personal and organizational advancements. Learning how to do fundraisers for our athletic department and maintaining our facilities is very crucial because there are a lot of things that go into the program. There are games, practices, assemblies, and other events that we host so we can build the program to where we want it to be.

Succeeding on the court and in the school by using the tools I learned from fundraising for the athletic department led me to realize that I have a gift for managing money and wanting to help others do the same. This supported my interest in going to college to be a Finance major. I want to get my degree in finance so I can not only make money by doing the thing I love, but I can also make a difference in my community to build the wealth of those who need it or help the ones who have a lot maintain their money and grow it even further. As an athlete and a future Finance major, the day I learned that most athletes go bankrupt after 4 years of retirement, it fueled my motivation to shut that down from the source and work hard to make sure that the bankruptcy of athletes never happens again. Then seeing how I have a talent for doing math and being interested in helping people, I wanted a career that involved these traits combined with the financial background that I have with working with money. Then I was introduced to Financial Advisory and I immediately focused on doing activities and programs with financial backgrounds and wanted to pursue something in that realm according to college. Being a finance major would be the most optimal for me because it will give me the skills that I need to be my best self regarding helping families, athletes, and others balance their finances and grow their income to put them in the best position to better themselves. This is similar to the goal that I had to make the athletic department more money so that we could be better accommodating to the athletes so they could have consistent practice spaces. The leadership experience that I had for the athletic department was just one example of how I could help make people money. After I get my education and become a Financial Advisor, the possibilities for growing the wealth of different individuals are endless.