Royals Essay 19

The Kansas City Royals Foundation All-Star Scholarship
The most important leadership experience I’ve had during high school was being named team captain of my school’s basketball team during my junior and senior years. Before I talk about that specifically, I want to go back to where my love for basketball first began.
Growing up, sports were a big part of my life. Athletes like LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Salvador Perez, and others inspired me to become a great athlete myself. I first started playing basketball when I was seven years old at the YMCA. That’s where I learned the fundamentals of the game and realized I could be pretty good. From a young age, basketball has given me friendships and taught me many different lessons both good and bad.
It wasn’t until my sophomore year of high school that I decided to take basketball seriously and push myself to potentially play at the collegiate level. After making varsity my freshman year, and having a good season, and even starting position, I was given a captain role my sophomore year. At the time, the role didn’t feel as serious because I had gone to this school my whole life and already knew everyone on the team. Having that title was both exciting and important to me. It motivated me to work harder and become someone others could look up to.
As team captain, I helped lead my team to a 13–6 record, where we made it all the way to the state championship game, where we would lose 67–61. That loss taught me a lot about myself and what I needed to improve if I wanted to get back to that point and win. After the school year ended, my parents and I decided it would be best for me to transfer schools in hopes of bettering my chances of playing in college. After a lot of long and thoughtful conversations, I chose a school that I believed would be the best fit for me.
Transferring seemed like a great opportunity to expand and improve my game. The program had three experienced and respected coaches who knew the game well. Being the new kid was scary at first, but soon built relationships with my teammates. . It wasn’t until one day at practice that my coach called me and another teammate into his office assigning us the role of being team captains. I had the speaking captain role meaning I was supposed to keep guys in check whether things were going good or bad.
At first, I wasn’t excited about the role. As the new player, I wanted my teammates to like me. I didn’t want them to think I was correcting them just because I had the title of captain. The role came with challenges, just like our season did. However, it forced me to become comfortable in uncomfortable situations and to communicate clearly and respectfully, even when conversations were difficult.
The most important leadership responsibility I’ve had was serving as senior team captain. It was an honor to be named captain again in my final year of high school. This season challenged me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. We started strong, winning four games in a row, but things started to take a turn. After losing multiple games in a row, our team chemistry had completely been taken away. Blame, lack of accountability, poor effort, and bad decision-making were just a few things we suffered from. As captain, I felt that much of this fell on me. I was told after practices and games that our lack of success was on me and my lack of leadership.
As difficult as that was, I never considered quitting. Instead, I wanted to prove why I had been chosen as captain. One day, I called a mandatory team meeting phone call where everyone had the chance to express how they felt and discuss why we weren’t playing at our best. That conversation I think was a big turning point in our season. Practices started improving , our effort increased, and although we still lost some games, they were closer. We began to grow stronger as a team.
For the first time in several years, we finished the regular season with double-digit wins and a five-game winning streak. Although we’ve made a lot of progress, we know that it wasn’t our final goal. Our goal is to win districts and make a strong run at state.
This season helped me build relationships with my teammates and create a brotherhood that will hopefully last a lifetime. As a leader, I learned how to set high standards through my actions, manage team dynamics, and communicate effectively under pressure. Most importantly, it taught me accountability and helped me develop a “we” mindset instead of a “me” mindset.
This had made me want to further my education in hopes of being able to continue my collegiate basketball career. I plan to major in Digital Production and work for athletes and major sport programs creating, managing, and distributing content across online platforms.