Hello my name is Avery Kopcha, I have been playing basketball ever since I could remember. Basketball has been such a huge part of my life, I have spent thousands of hours in the gym between practices and games. It all started when I was young, I was about 4 years old when I first started to take it seriously. Every morning before school I would get up early and my dad and I would head to the gym and arrive at about 6 o’clock to get shots up and work out. This all started in kindergarten. In second grade I made my first aau/travel team, even though I was in second I played up with fifth graders. I continued to workout every day before school all throughout kindergarten, elementary, and high school as well as playing aau. Aau and travel ball have given me some crazy opportunity’s that I’m very thankful for. My 7th grade year my aau team made the NBA Jr Olympics and had the chance to represent the east coast of the United States in the Jr Olympics. Our team also made it to the national championship three times and we won once. At one point we were ranked in the top 5 aau teams in the country. I’ve attained numerous basketball camps over the years , in 8th grade I was blessed to be able to try out for Team USA and I was invited down to South Carolina for that. Just last year I was invited to the NCAA top 200 camp in Memphis which was an incredible experience. Over these camps I’ve played with and against many future draft picks some of which I’m still friends with. My high school basketball experience has also been pretty fun. All four years I’ve made it to the league championship winning twice, I have been named all state three times and all league four times. My senior year I averaged 23 points per game which was top 10 in the state of Pennsylvania. I finished wit 1924 total career points along with over 500 assists. Basketball has not always been a beautiful ride though. There has been many trials and setbacks, the sport of basketball is very mentally demanding. I struggled and still do sometimes with confidence on the court. I learned that this confidence struggle on the court often translates to off court confidence struggles as well. Something that’s helped me with that is recognizing that people opinions and perceptions of you don’t matter, what matters is that your doing something you love don’t let them take the love away from you. I also learned to put my identity into basketball you need to find other things to balance out life and ultimately find happiness in God and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I love basketball and always will even after it is over for me I hope I can still impact others through the game because the game has been very good to me. Thank you Avery Kopcha