Personal Narrative: Coach Ridenhour As A Jumper

I was playing center field waiting for those flying balls to come straight at me so I could catch them to get the players out. The girl that was batting hit the ball so hard that it sounded like she broke the bat. The ball was about thirty feet in the air and I shuffled backwards to see if it was going behind me sure enough it was. I sped up my speed to keep in sync with the ball, I put my glove out in front of my face and with a lot of force the ball landed right in the glove. The crowds started to cheer, and so did my team mates. I threw the ball to second base and got the runner out on a double play. The crowds cheered and roared with excitement. The game passed quickly, and we were in the last inning. Our team was the last to bat. The bases were fully loaded. The crowd cheered for a beautiful hit. It was now my turn to bat. My chance to show everyone that I improved. As I was walking my team mate shouted, “You got this, Andre!”. Then all of a sudden everyone started to chant and scream my nick name. This brought tears to my eyes because they all believed in

It was seventh grade year, I was one of the smallest kids in my grade. My biggest dream at that time was to start on the seventh grade A team as a linebacker. The first day of practice we went to the defensive position that we wanted to play, so therefore I went to the linebacker coach. When I went over there he just laughed at me and told me to go over to the safety coach because I was just to small. So I did and ended up being decent at the position. Thankfully I was able to go to the position on offence that I wanted, which was running back. I ended up starting B team as a safety and a running back.

It was my Junior year in high school and I had decided to join the Color Guard team . I was really nervous because if you were selected you would go around the city doing color guards and representing our school. I went to all the practices that usually took place before school early in the morning. When I struggled with something I kept practicing to get done right. When I saw other people who struggled I would ask if they needed help. My instructors saw what I was doing and kept a closer eye on me for it. Eventually it came down to try outs day and the teams were

Our coach at the time, Coach Lallemand, would have cuts at the beginning and end of the year every year. So, at the end of my sophomore year we were at tryouts going through our drills and what have you. Then at the end he called us one by one into his office. I was expecting to make the team I had no doubt in my mind I was going to make the team. When he called my name I wasn’t nervous or anxious, I knew I was

Well it was finally my turn to try out to be the flyer. I was really nervous. Then I hear one of the coaches say my name and I was up. As I walk up to the base girls I smile and get ready to go in the air. When I was up in the air i was doing AMAZING!!!!

It was my freshman year in high school. We had a pretty good wrestling team and we made it to the regional duals and the four best teams in our district were there and the team who has made it to state wrestling the past three years and we had to beat all three teams in order to make it to state which was going to be difficult.

It was just another school night in the seventh grade. Our recreational tackle football team had a practice at 730pm until 9. It was a very swampy night and from that I felt myself very sluggish. At the time, I was a backup running back. I was always left on the sidelines facing the chills of the cold wind during games. I typically didn’t get to see much playing time on the field, but that night I got my opportunity. I was receiving kicks during a punting audition and all I was doing was catching the ball and throwing it back, nothing unique. One throw after another, my coach began to praise my arm strength. Seeing me pass the ball was a true eye-opener. That night, I went from a backup running back, to the starting quarterback of my rec

I was going to go! I promised myself, and my coach, that I would! I was really sweating, my face was seriously turning red, like I was eating a fireball! All of my teammates and coaches were all staring at me. I was so terrified and I felt like I was in the ocean with sharks surrounding me and going to eat me any second! “OK, this is silly” I told myself. ‘I 'm going for it!” I started to run in very slow motion and sped up, I started putting my hands on the ground and I could just see eyes staring right at me! I began to put my hands back, well they were touching the other side of my body, well very quickly lifting my body up from the ground and…… Finishing!! I could already see my friends coming to me and putting their hands out so give me a REAL BIG HIGH FIVE! Well my coaches were coming right after them! I seriously jumped up and down with the most excitement I’ve ever had! I was trying to get that for years I felt like! And guess what? I did it! Gladly,that was the last rotation before we got to go home! I was so thrilled to tell my mom

I made sure to act very confident at tryouts so it would not be a repeat of the year before. The high school tryouts felt completely different. I was more confident, louder, and overall a better cheerleader. All the hard work I put in really paid off. The day after tryouts, I remember I was in the parking lot of the eye doctor’s office when the teams had been posted. I was so nervous I would be let down again, so I made my mom check first. Typically freshman year girls cheer for the freshman team, but my mom did not see my name there. Panicking, I took her phone and double checked scrolling to see the other teams. Sure enough, my name was not on the freshman team. My name was under junior varsity! I surpassed my goal I made a team that only a few girls my age

When I was 10 my father suggested that I should try out for the Brunswick Bombers softball team. Never playing fastpitch before I was nervous. The hitting portion of the tryout came, and never hitting a fastpitch

Despite having quit playing soccer on leagues due to school, I decided to try-out for the soccer team at school in 7th grade.

Try-outs were a week long and were the hardest thing I had ever done at the time. One specific example of a work out was a drill called chance 300’s. Our coach would choose a distance we had to run, and if we guessed what the distance was, we could choose what we would do instead. There was a one in six chance to guess it right and we never really did. So it was a suicide at 100 meters or 200 meters or 300 meters. We had to run 12 and couldn’t stop. But that strengthened me more than I could know. It taught me not to quit, always strive for greatness.

The fact that I wanted to participate in a school sport was the main reason I decided to try out for the team. When I entered the gym on

When I was 12 years old in 7th grade sitting at lunch with Asali, my science teacher asked me to go to soccer tryouts that evening and see what I've got. In last period I asked to call my parents and see if I could stay after school to try out for soccer, both of my parents agreed and brought me my cleats with clothes to change into. Then I went into the locker room to get dressed.

As my heart grew for the love of volleyball, I took my talents to harder competition, Great Lakes at the end of my sixth-grade season. This is a very well-known team and they are very superior at volleyball. That was one of the scariest tryouts I have ever attended because there were over three hundred girls trying out for the volleyball team! The first thing everyone was tested on was "hitting". Every girl got in a line and tried their best to hit the ball over the net. Well, I was still in sixth grade at the time along with many other girls and most of us were all still fairly short. I was the next girl in line to hit, I had butterflies in my stomach like no other. I walked up to the ten-foot line and did my approach. Boom! The ball goes screaming over the net! I never knew I had such great power in my arm. Next up in line was the girl behind me her name was Megan, she was also short. Megan goes up to the line and swung at the ball but missed. The girls in the gym were laughing at her because the ball went under the net instead of going over. Suddenly