I am not a great wrestler. I bet you might you wondering why I am applying for a wrestling scholarship then, right? The answer to that question is, for me, wrestling isn't about pins or points. It is about perseverance, individual mental strength and learning to be part of a team. From the time I was born until about 14, my father emotionally abused me. He would call me stupid, and useless and even once told me he wished I was never born. My mother divorced him when I was 7 and my brother was only 5. From then on I saw him on the weekends. I hated those weekends. At the age of 14, with the support of my mother, I agreed to speak with a therapist to help me understand my feelings. They ranged from rage to fear and all emotions in between. At the same time, I was involved in sports, mainly soccer. It was the sport that lifted me out of my anxiety and help me realize that I loved being a part of a team. I am a fierce competitor and often found myself losing my cool when provoked by members of the other team. As I analyzed this behavior with my counselor, they suggested that this aggression came from trauma in my past. One of the things he suggested was to try a sport in that I could be an individual contributor as well as a team. The idea was to help me learn to control my emotions and my actions. So I joined the wrestling team! The benefits were outstanding. Self-control, discipline, hard work, and fitness in the off-season in preparation for soccer. Honestly, at first, I did not like the uniforms, but I stuck with it anyway, lol. I now encourage all the underclassmen in other sports like football and baseball, to consider wrestling as a way to add to their personal and athletic abilities. I have recruited 4 people to join the wrestling team this year alone! I may not be the best wrestler. I may not pursue it in college. However, I will always attribute my time as a wrestler as the sport that helped me grow the most as a person. I cannot express how important wrestling, the coaches and those that supported me have changed my life. Thank you for considering me for this scholarship as I pursue a career in Sports Management so that I can impact others through coaching, recruitment and mentorship, the same way those that supported me have done.

Manchester City, the blue moon rising, six premier league championships. This is what I have watched in the past ten years. Through hard times and good times, this team has been a constant in my life. Without even seeing the team in person know the club inside and out. It is my dream to work for this club and step into the storied stage of the Etihad Stadium. Watching the sophisticated game has made me a more patient person, watching the build-up to the goal takes a very long but makes the outcome worth it. This is how I look at life, everything builds up to an end goal. Soccer has changed my life for the better in many ways. Such as making me a more humble and calm person. Learning to stay calm for 90 minutes of a game is a key factor in the game of soccer and life. This game teaches control on and off the ball and how to make choices to help the team even when you don't have the ball. Everything carries from the game to your everyday lifestyle. You see things people don't see like how I see runs before they are made in soccer. It is the reason why I want to pursue a career in coaching or managing a team in some capacity. I want to influence others the way my coaches and sports have influenced me. Watching Manchester City teaches me in real life to be better. I watch and learn to become a better team player and leader. Always learning to lead and control the field or classroom. Life lessons are learned from watching Manchester City. I am taught to be a strong and composed person. I work well with others even if it isn’t a team. Being good with people is something that I have learned to do, to be sympathetic and not to be overwhelmed but to look for ways to keep pushing people to be the best they can be. This also inspires me to be the best man and person that I can be. To be able to balance my life with sports, school, and other activities is the key to my life. I think that this team has impacted me more than just watching a game. It has made me invested in something I love and being on a team is the dream that I know I can always work towards. This pushes me to try my hardest to make this dream come true. Even if I don’t make it as a coach, I know that this work can be translated into other parts of my life so that nothing is put to waste. I am a strong believer that we are imprints of everything we interact with, and this team has left the imprint of making me a better and more humble person. Taught me to be a better leader and that is something I can be proud of as I pursue a career in Sports Management.

I was born into an abusive household. My mother married a man who thought it was his job to bully and intimidate both his wife and his children into submission. When I was in Kindergarten my father would stand above me while I sat at the kitchen table writing my ABCs on ruled paper. If I did them wrong, he would insult and degrade me and I would have to start all over again. Verbal and emotional abuse is a real thing and one that I have experienced firsthand. My mother bravely divorced when I was only 7 and my brother 5 only years old. As a growing child, I was still seeing my father on weekends until the age of 14. It was then that I was mature enough to talk about my experiences with a counselor and made the decision that I no longer wished to spend time with my father and worked with both my mother and the state to enforce this decision. I have learned a lot about myself through counseling and began to think about what it would be like if I could help others who have gone through similar situations as me. My mother, stemming from her own experiences, is a strong advocate against child abuse and works on the board of a non-profit, The Humanity Preservation Foundation. She would often discuss her efforts and ask me and my brother for suggestions on how to reach other youth to share the message of education and prevention of abuse and bullying. I began to ask if there could be a 'Youth' version of their program where teens could be a part of the effort. From there we launched the inaugural "Junior Ambassador" program for The Humanity Preservation Foundation. It has been a labor of love to begin this program. First, we developed a program outline, a mission statement and a recruiting strategy. We had two main goals, to support the main HPF team with any tasks that we could, like stuffing envelopes and mailers, to create Tik-Tok videos to share our message on social media. We found that youth were more receptive when their peers were reaching out and communicating. We learned about the ACE scale (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and how those experiences impact youth as they move to adulthood. We identified our first program, advocating for children in the Foster Care system. The 'Cards of Love' campaign is where our Junior Ambassadors create card packets, containing an assortment of crayons, two pieces of card stock and instructions on how to create the cards in an encouraging and supportive manner. We worked with school classrooms, our peers, and churches to encourage other youth to create these cards We also connected with CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) of New Jersey in two counties to help disperse our cards to the children that need them most. We learned that children in foster care are 80% more likely to end up incarcerated, have adult mental illness and anxiety and are significantly more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs as an adult. These traumatic experiences stay with these kids for a lifetime. Our goal was to make the foster care experience a little less traumatic, and remind them that they are loved and supported. I hope to continue my work as an advocate for other youth through my ability to coach and mentorship. I hope to stay with the HPF team as an adult advocate as well! Thank you for considering me for this scholarship!