My dream version of my future self is someone who cares about the community and actively participates in different events throughout the community, works in a career that I am passionate about in sports analytics, serves actively in the local church and provides for my family as a supportive father/husband.

Opray Winfrey once said, "Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you". For me, my passion is sports and numbers. I love using sports analytics to analyze statistics and help sports teams to better themselves. There's no better feeling than watching your team earn a victory thanks to something that you emphasized through stats in practice. Thankfully, I got the amazing opportunity to do this at the collegiate level! As a division oen student manager for the softball and men's basketball teams at Saint Francis University, I ensure the smooth running of both teams throughout the year. Responsibilities can include setting up for practice, cleaning laundry, filming practices and games, analyzing statistics for the coaching staff, and more! Through statistics, I was able to showcase our basketball crashing numbers last year, otherwise known as how often each player went to get each rebound. These numbers were brought up after every game and listed as an area where we needed to improve. Seeing my work being put into practice at the Division One level was an incredible experience, and watching the team become more successful helped to develop a strong sense of pride in my work. This love of statistics continued into evaluating softball statistics after each weekend and providing the coaching staff with a breakdown and other important information. I hope to continue this work over the next three years and continue to see improvement with both teams! In my future career, I hope to utilize this love of sports and numbers to earn employment in the world of sports anaytics. As a current college sophomore, I'm not sure exactly what path I will take to get there. However, I do know that I will get there with my strong work ethic and desire. As a student manager, you're constantly working 20 hours a week while trying to manage other extracurricular organizations and classwork. It takes a special person to be dedicated to a team, and I believe that my passion for the industry drives my strong work ethic. However, this future career path presents two issues. The first is getting through college with limited debt. I attend school at a private university where tuition and other fees are higher than public universities. For this reason, getting through college with limited debt will be an issue. Secondly, anyone working in the sports field knows that it takes a few years to work your way up through the industry. The first few years are typically spent making a small amount of money while working a ton of hours. I don't think the hours will be a problem, but trying to pay off any student loans I accumulate while having an extremely low starting salary will be a potential problem. For this reason, this scholarship will help me get through my degree with limited debt and help start me on my path to pursuing my career in sports analytics.

American author John Maxwell once wrote, "Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another". In my life, I have had the great opportunity to influence a plethora of other people. These opportunities have presented themselves in my high school activities and even continued in my college extracurriculars! To begin, I have had a large influence on people through my high school activities. As a member of Future Business Leaders of America, I was able to serve as a club officer to drive club growth. My presentation group also helped mentor a young group of freshmen who came in and weren't sure if FBLA was right for them. With our guidance, this group was able to place in the top ten in the state of Pennsylvania. Although my group didn't place that year, we were able to pass our passion for the club to the next wave of FBLA students. With this influence, our club grew immensely over the past few years and became more successful by earning twenty spots to the National Leadership Conference in Tampa, Florida. Throughout my time in high school, I also participated in Boy Scouts and earned my Eagle Scout. With my Eagle Project building a batting cage for our baseball program, I was able to influence a positive change in the community. Finally, I also served in high school as a member of choir, band, Student Council, statistician for baseball and girls' basketball, and golf. Through each of these organizations, I made sure to influence people positively to lead them to success. However, my leadership didn't stop at high school. As a current sophomore at Saint Francis University, I made sure to continue to utilize my leadership abilities. As a student manager for men's basketball and softball, I ensure the smooth running of both teams throughout their respective seasons. This can include setting up practices, cleaning laundry, filming practices and games, analyzing statistics for the coaching staff, and more! In this role, I serve directly under the coaching staff and have a direct impact on the team's success. Furthermore, I am also an Executive Board member (treasurer) of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs' Organization. Through this role, I help to plan our bi-weekly meetings and upcoming activities for the fall and spring semesters as well as track the group's finances. Next, I also serve as a leader for Christian Athlete Outreach, where I help plan our weekly meetings, volunteer to speak a message to the group members and spread the love of Christ throughout the community. In a broader scope, everything I do is done to positively make an impact on other people. This is shown not only through my high school experience, student manager experience, and club involvement but also through my assistance with running cameras for our media team, helping other students out in classes, and just trying to be a positive light to everyone around me! I hope that leadership opportunities continue to grow for the rest of my collegiate career and future employment!

Former NBA basketball coach Stann Van Gundy once said "Understanding the assumptions behind any statistic makes you think about your own views". This is the essence of analytics: Don’t trust, but verify — with data. This process is one that I utilize every day, both inside and outside the classroom. As a sports lover who is aspiring to work in the field of sports analytics one day, I love utilizing math daily. Using formulas to show solutions and make sense of otherwise random numbers with formulas such as accounting ones for assets, net income, and present value or business analytics ones for variance, standard deviation, and probability is what I live for each day. Apart from my double major course program in accounting and business analytics constantly testing my mathematical abilities, I also use math in my extracurricular activities. At my place of undergraduate education (Saint Francis University), I am a student manager for two division one athletic programs: the softball and men's basketball teams. In these roles, I can track game statistics and use them to help ensure the future success of the team. For basketball, I tracked crashing numbers to see how often our players were going to get a rebound. After every game, these numbers were sent to our coaching staff to give feedback to our players. I also tracked traditional statistics (points, rebounds, steals, etc.) over summer workouts to give the coaching staff an idea of where individual players were at with a running total sheet. With softball, I tracked statistics based on different situations and provided advice to our coaching staff with specific lineups to use, pinch hitters to utilize, and different struggling points in games for pitchers. I also sent a post-game report to our entire staff breaking down the results from a few games or series. I love utilizing math in all facets of my life. Utilizing it in my major will help me to achieve the skills necessary to start my future career path, and combining this with my extracurricular responsibilities will hopefully lead to landing a job in sports analytics once I graduate. Math has played a large part in my life already, and I can't wait to see what it adds to my future from here!

Benjamin Franklin once said, "Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship". The fact that buying something small over and over again, something that doesn't feel that important, could actually put you into an unappealing position financially is astounding. This quote and the meaning behind it illustrates the most important lesson of finance : budgeting. Budgeting is allocating your money into certain expenses and constantly tracking how much you spend in each area. This allows you to be smarter with your money and save for your future at the same time. As an upcoming college freshman, I'm aware of the extremely high costs at my university, furthermore all institutions across the country. For this purpose, I need to be able to budget efficiently and not spend a lot on unneeded things in order to have enough money to pay for my college education. Gaining this skill will allow me to achieve my goal of graduating college debt-free. If I budget efficiently and save my money in all of the right ways, I will hopefully be able to pay off all of my college without taking out any loans, which will enable me to start my career in a more desirable position from a financial aspect.

I've always heard the saying, "Giving is better than receiving", and never really fully understood it until my senior year of high school. I've always thought and felt that individual accomplishments were the best feeling in the world. However, with my experiences in Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), that view has now changed. I was a very successful member of FBLA for the first three years of high school. I placed at states every year, earned two trips to nationals (which were virtual due to COVID), and served as a local officer. I was on cloud nine with the organization, ready to complete whatever was sent my way during my senior year. My senior year in the organization started off well. We started by preparing our own speech for our event, then helped a team of freshman girls with their speech. These girls were very shy out of the gate and nervous about making a speech and presentation. We guided them through the process and helped them to finalize things before the state conference. At states, my event didn't place in the top ten. My team was devastated. However, our freshman team that we mentored did place in the top ten. We were ecstatic for them! Seeing their eyes light up for the organization and become excited about competing in future years was like passing the torch that I was given in FBLA as a freshman. Through this experience, I learned that giving is better than receiving. Helping out others and seeing their eyes light up when they achieve greatness is the best feeling in the world, and it is one that I plan to continue throughout my college experience.

I have been a mentor for others through our high school chapter of Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA). I have been a part of this organization for all four years of high school, placing at states three times and nationals once. Through this, I've developed the skills necessary to prepare a successful presentation and get your point across when given a topic. With these skills, I had the privilege of working with a freshman team who was very shy when they started out. By constantly helping them with their speech and presentation, they were able to make it to the state level of the competition. With even more practice and refining the speech and presentation, they were able to place in the top ten at the State Leadership Conference. Although my team didn't place at states this year, seeing them grow and develop has been incredible to watch. All three team members went from wanting to be done with FBLA after the year was over to becoming extremely excited to continue competing throughout the rest of their high school career. From this experience, I was able to realize that helping others is one of the best things you can do in society today, and I plan to continue that throughout my college experience.

Resilience, Perseverance, and Faith Michael Jordan once said, “ If you run into a wall, don’t give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” This has been the reality of my life. I was born a premature twin at thirty-three weeks, which caused me to have lots of medical issues. Just a few of these included a bowel obstruction, chiari malformation, dental issues, and a two-month stay at the Children’s Institute to learn how to eat correctly. This is all without mention of normal doctor visits. These issues have limited me in many ways, but they have molded me into the person I am. As a high school senior, I participate in music, National Honor Society, golf, Student Council, Future Business Leaders of America, and Boy Scouts. I also keep stats for the baseball and girls’ basketball teams. All of my medical issues have molded my participation in these organizations. I keep statistics and golf because I’m limited athletically, and I’m in band to participate in the football season. Despite what might seem like restrictions, I’ve overcome them and not let them define who I am. This experience in my life has taught me a lot about perseverance and resilience, all through faith. My life is a testament to God having a plan for me. Although I can’t play sports, God gave me a passion for them, which I am pursuing with a degree in Sports Management. After college, I’m not sure where my life will be led. What I do know, however, is that God has a plan for me on this Earth. A simple quote from an unknown author perfectly sums this up: “God’s plan is always the best…But don’t forget that when God is silent, He’s doing something for you.” In fact, in the future, this resilience will help me a lot. I will be officially picking a college to attend within the next four months, which will require me to have resiliency to sort through all of the information I am given about my top choice colleges. Along with that, once I attend my college, I will have to have resilience in the classroom and outside of it to deal with any issues that come up. Finally, this resilience will help me with my future career. If I get turned down from potential jobs, I need to have the resilience to keep going, submitting new applications, and hopefully achieiving the job of my dreams. Clearly, my resilience has helped me in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

The biggest turnaround story from my life that I am proud of has to do with my medical issues. From finger Z-plasty surgery to a chiari malformation to a bowel obstruction just to name a few, my life has been full of medical issues. Totalling these issues, I have had sixteen surgeries up to this point in my life. I am currently seventeen, turning eighteen in a month. Due to all of my medical issues, I wasn't allowed to play traditional sports like football or wrestling. I'm also not allowed to ride roller coasters or any ride that would jerk my neck in any way. These restraints have molded me into the person I am today. Currently, I am in the marching band to participate in the football season. I am in Future Business Leaders of America to compete with others academically rather than physically. I am on the golf team since it is more a mental sport than a physical one. Finally, I keep stats for the baseball and girls' basketball teams to keep my love of sports alive even though I don't play. I am also in Student Council, National Honor Society, Chorus, a Class Officer, Boy Scouts, and active in my local church. All of these activities have been shaped by my medical issues. My life has completely turned around from what many medical professionals thought my life would turn into. With that thought, my medical issues and the ways I've overcame them is my greatest turnaround story.

I hope to leave a positive impact on the world. More specificially, I hope to change the world with regards to analytics in sports. I have a passion for math and sports. I keep statistics for the girls' varsity basketball and baseball teams at my high school and love doing both of these jobs. Because of my interest, I would love to continue that passion by majoring in Sports Management or Statistics in college. With this degree, I hope to eventually get a job in sports analytics. Baseball is my true passion, so my ultimate goal has to do with America's pastime. After getting a job in sports analytics, I hope to work my way up through an organization to earn the position of Head of the Analytics Department. With this, I hope to use my intellectual curiosity to see the game in a new way, and form a new way of winning that will change the sport for generations. Clearly, I hope to change the world by leaving an impact on the sport of baseball.

I have a lot of goals for my future. First of all, I have a goal to get a Bachelor's degree in Sports Management or Statistics. I would love to further my education and interest in Sports Management or Statistics, and majoring in that would achieve that goal perfectly. Secondly, I have a goal to get a career in Sports Analytics. I am a huge sports fan and numbers lover, so combining my two passions into one career would be my dream job. Ultimately, I would love to work in baseball analytics with the Pittsburgh Pirates organization, as they are my favorite team. I also have a few more specific goals for the end of my senior year. I have a goal to earn as many scholarships as I possibly can in order to decrease the increasingly expensive cost of college. I also have a goal to graduate at the top of my class. Finally, I have a goal to help the girls' basketball or baseball team to a District championship as the team statistician/student coach. Clearly, I have a lot of goals for the end of my senior year and my life after high school.

There are a lot of simple pleasures in my life. I enjoy a lot about school, sports, and just life in general. At school, I find simple pleasure in interacting with my friends and having a good time. I am a very sociable person, so interacting with people gives me great joy. With sports, I enjoy watching any type of sporting event. Whether it's baseball, hockey, basketball, football, or even golf, I find simple pleasure in watching different sporting events or even reading information or compiling statistics about different sports. With life in general, I find simple pleasure in waking up everyday. I was born with a lot of medical issues as a thirty-three week premature twin. Through this point in my life, I have had sixteen surgeries and multiple hospital stays that didn't require surgery. For this reason, I find simple joy and overall pleasure in waking up everyday and being able to live a life that God wants me to live, without my medical issues hindering me. Clearly, I find simple pleasures in a lot of things.

Giving back is very important to me. My community has given me so much to help me in my life, so giving back to them would help to make up a small portion of what they did for me. On a larger scale, giving back is important because it allows you to make the world a better place and promote peace throughout the world. I am also involved in a lot to give back. I am in Boy Scouts, which we do a lot of community service in. I participate in road cleanups, food bank distributions, events at the church we attend, and more. I even was recently in charge of my Eagle Project, building a batting cage to benefit our school's baseball program. I don't only give back with Scouts, though. Through National Honor Society (NHS), I have volunteered at our local food bank and read books to elementary students. Finally, I give back with my church. At my church, I run sound once a month, participate as a Worship Leader, and even write and speak messages sporadically. Clearly, I give back to better the world in a lot of different ways.

Michael Jordan once said, “Obstacles don’t have to stop you.” This has been the reality of my life. I was born a premature twin at thirty-three weeks. Up to this point, I have had sixteen surgeries and multiple hospital stays. Some of these surgeries included a bowel obstruction, finger Z-plasty, and insertion of a G-tube. A few reasons for non-surgical hospital stays included a chiari malformation and acute pancreatitis. This condensed list doesn’t even touch on my extensive dental issues or travelling 2.5 hours for doctor's appointments throughout the year. These issues have caused me to not be able to do certain things. However, these restrictions have made me into the person I am today. As a senior in high school, I participate in band, chorus, National Honor Society, golf, Student Council, Future Business Leaders of America, Boy Scouts, and keep stats for the girls’ basketball and baseball team. Joining these organizations has been the result of my issues. I keep stats and golf because I have a difficult time competing athletically. I’m in band to be in the football season. Some of my school organizations have been affected by my medical history as well. I can’t give blood for Student Council and can’t participate in certain activities in Boy Scouts. Despite what might seem like restrictions, I’ve overcome them and not let them define who I am as a person. These obstacles have taught me a lot about perseverance, resilience, and faith. I was told that I wouldn't live a normal life. However, my life is a testament to God watching over me. God had a plan for me here. As of right now, His plan for me looks to be headed in the Sports Management realm. Although I can’t play sports, God gave me a passion for them. With this passion, I realized I can pursue it with this field and major. A quote from an unknown author perfectly sums this up: “God’s plan is always the best. Sometimes the process is painful, and hard. But don’t forget that when God is silent, He’s doing something for you.”

I do a lot of acts of service that I perform in my life to help others. First of all, I volunteer at my church. I run the sound system once a month, and I also count attendance for Sunday School. When needed, I also perform the role of a Worship Leader. Throughout the year, I also write messages and speak them as sermons at my home church or in different churches across the area. Secondly, I do a lot of service in Boy Scouts. With Scouts, we have a road clean up day to pick up trash along a section of road. We also help out with a concession stand at a local hunter safety course, as well as march in a Veteran's Day parade and serve lemonade during the week of July 4th. With advancement in Scouts, I also performed a service project for my Eagle Scout, which was building a batting cage for our baseball program.

Michael Jordan once said, “Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” This has been the reality of my life. I was born a premature twin at thirty-three weeks. When combined with the fact of genetics and being on oxygen 24/7 in my early life, these reasons explain my extensive medical history. Up to this point in my life, I have had sixteen surgeries and multiple hospital stays. Some of these surgeries included a bowel obstruction, finger Z-plasty, and insertion of a G-tube. A few reasons for non-surgical hospital stays included a chiari malformation and acute pancreatitis. This condensed list of my medical history doesn’t even touch on my extensive dental issues with soft teeth or the fact of having to travel two and a half hours multiple times throughout the year to see different physicians at Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. This is all without mention of normal doctor visits such as the pediatrician or ear, nose, and throat doctor. All of these medical issues have caused me to not be able to do certain things. I can’t play football, wrestle, or do anything that would jerk my neck in any way. These restrictions have made me into the person I am today. As a senior in high school, I participate in band, chorus, National Honor Society, golf, Student Council, Future Business Leaders of America, and Boy Scouts. I also keep stats for the girls’ basketball team and baseball team. Joining some of these organizations has been the result of my medical history. I keep stats for both sports teams and golf because I have a difficult time competing athletically in main sports with all of my setbacks. I’m in band to be able to participate in the football season. Some of my school organizations have also been affected by my medical history. I can’t give blood for Student Council because of my low weight and can’t participate in certain activities in Boy Scouts as well as many activities associated with the band and chorus, such as the Music in the Parks Festival at Hersheypark. Despite what might seem like restrictions, I’ve overcome them and not let them define who I am as a person. These obstacles have taught me a lot about perseverance, resilience, and faith. I was told by many doctors that I wouldn't live a normal life. However, my life is a testament to God watching over me. God had a plan for me here, and He wants me to fulfill it. As of right now, His plan for me looks to be headed in the Statistics/Sports Management realm. Although I can’t play sports, God gave me a passion for them. With this passion, I realized I can pursue it with a degree in Sports Management or Statistics since I enjoy math. After college, I’m not sure how that degree will help me to fulfill God’s plan for my life. What I do know, however, is that God will be me throughout the process. A simple quote from an unknown author perfectly sums this up: “God’s plan is always the best. Sometimes the process is painful, and hard. But don’t forget that when God is silent, He’s doing something for you.” To me, getting a college education means getting the opportunity to work in a field that I wouldn't be able to otherwise work in due to my medical concerns. It also means the opportunity to enhance my knowledge to better the world and community I work in. A typical day in my life outside of school includes working on a lot of different sports stuff. I work on baseball scouting reports, basketball film, or watching different sporting events on television (when I don't have schoolwork or school organization stuff to do). Along with that, I am currently working on a Sports Biz project to help bring people into the sports field by showing them the advantages of it. Finally, I also work on anything I need to with Boy Scouts (Eagle Project, service, campouts). I feed my curiosity both inside and outside of school. Inside of school, I feed my curiosity by taking challenging classes such as Calculus, Statistics, and different college courses. Outside of school, I feed my curiosity by analyzing different things for the high school teams I keep stats for. I also work on learning how to code with R to be able to plot data.

The song that most inspires me is, "It's Not Over Yet" by For King and Country. I am a Christain, and listening to this type of music (and song specifically) helps me to get through tough times. The chorus of the song continuously states, "It's not over yet, It's not over yet". That simple line reminds me to continue fighting on and trudging on through this life that we have. We may experience hardships, but our ultimate purpose in life is to be disciples for Jesus Christ and spread his Word. No hardship we encounter will be too much for Jesus to handle. The song also states, "Keep on fighting, out of the dark, into the light...". This reminds me that we fight not for ourselves, but for the light of Christ (we fight out of the dark of sin into the light of Jesus Christ). I listen to or think about this song anytime I'm struggling with something in school or life in general. When I listen to it, I am reminded of my purpose on this Earth, which is for God and not for my own selfish desires. It helps me to set a course for my life and realign my motives.