When I was eleven years old, I decided to tryout for my middle school softball team. Going into tryouts, I had zero prior experience with softball and relied heavily on my natural athleticism and pure determination. To my surprise, I made the team and spent an entire season developing my love for the sport. While I loved the game, I by no means was what you would call a good player in that first year, and because of this I felt it very difficult to connect with my teammates. The summer following my first season, I joined a yearlong travel team, The Lady Phantoms, where I would develop fundamental skills to accompany my love for the game. In that year with The Phantoms, I improved immensely, however I still felt a sense of disconnect from my teammates. I began to wonder if that feeling had less to do with my ability to play the game, and more to do with who I was as a person. It wasn’t until I joined my next travel team, The Lady Dukes, that I finally understood why I felt so disconnected from my previous teams. Upon meeting the Lady Dukes, I discovered what I believed to be an anomaly, a team filled with predominantly black athletes. I instantly felt more comfortable in my two days of tryouts with the Lady Dukes than I felt in the entire year I played with The Phantoms, where I remained the only black girl on the team. It was then that I realized the disconnect I felt between my previous teams, was not skill-based but rather a cultural divide. I experienced a completely new feeling of community, that resembled the likings of a family rather than an organization. In that experience, I knew that I never again wanted to feel the way I felt playing on a predominantly white team. After joining my current travel team, AAFP Elite, an organization with all black coaches, that focuses on building up black student athletes to play softball at the collegiate level, I knew that an HBCU was the best decision for my future. I am proud to say that I have committed to Shaw University, the first Historically Black College and University, not only in North Carolina but in the South as well, to further my academic and athletic career. I plan to major in Sociology, in order to pursue a career in the criminal justice system. Ever since I can remember, I have always been a peacemaker, mediating and helping to resolve conflicts between friends and family members. As I got older, I began to develop a deep interest in the American justice system, having a knack for speech and debate and a passion for helping others. I quickly realized that the justice system is not as black and white as it appears, and being the type of person who needs to know the why’s behind a situation, I became interested in the sciences behind human behavior and interactions. I believe that by studying and understanding human behavior in society, and incorporating more practices like restorative justice in our legal system, we can achieve a more equitable society. I hope to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, attend law school, and begin my career as a lawyer. I want to continue my work volunteering with restorative justice programs and become involved with more volunteer work to give back to the black community. Lastly, I hope to coach youth softball one day in order to inspire young, black athletes to pursue their dreams of playing at the next level.