Boyd 1

Cody Boyd

James Johnson

English 1101

17 September 2021

Just going for it

I leaned forward off the plate. A moment of hesitation coursed through me on if I should

take my lead. Everyone was so loud, but it was like a muffled echo to me. The wind blew on my

oversized pants, making me feel like a balloon. My body felt like ice and my heart an ice pick

breaking its way through. The pitcher wound up and when the ball left his hand, I rushed to the

home plate. Millions of thoughts plagued my mind what if I trip what if I am not fast enough, I

thought, but I was not going to let these thoughts make me fail. My coach shouting “Run!!!”

with the voice of a thousand Spartans. I bolted through second base and then third as I rounded

the third plate corner all I could see was dust from the previous runner, still I kept running those

last seconds felt like minutes but when I looked down, I seen my foot on the plate. My

teammates cheers felt like they could shatter skyscrapers and carry over mountains. I was

amazed that I scored my first ever point.

My freshman year I did not think I could do anything other than academics. Physical

education destroyed my confidence the most. My Physical education teacher's name was coach

White; he was bald and had a little bit of a build to him while he was not the worst physical

education teacher I have had, he certainly did not make things easier. We would always play

games such as dodgeball which were fun, but I could not run. Running felt like all the wind was

just ripped out of me and when I would stop to take a breath when I looked up all I would see
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were the floodgates of dodgeballs being rained down upon me. This coupled with the weight

room where I struggled to lift the bar as I felt a million eyes on me made me think that I could

not do any physical activity.

In the week after in person learning started back up my sophomore year I remember

stepping out of the car and walking into the school like any other day. A shiny headed bald man

with a Belmont track suit on approached me and said, “you look like the type of guy who plays

baseball” and handed me a paper for baseball sign ups. My first thought when he said this was

“you must be blind “but I did not say anything and took the flyer to not be rude an carried on

about my day. I was sitting in biology class and was contemplating joining for some reason I

decided to join on the thought of “how bad could I really be”. I started practicing a week after

my decision and my fears of embarrassment came rushing back to me.

I could not throw a baseball to save my life the ball felt like glue in my hands. The coach

seen me struggling the first day, so he said “Boyd come over here and practice here today”

thankfully I was not the only one over there which helped me feel less embarrassed. I was

worried that I would be the only one who could not learn how to do stuff, I still felt isolated, and

it lowered my confidence even more. Throughout the weeks of training, I powered through my

embarrassment and things started to look up when two of my friends joined Carter and Keron. I

felt less isolated, and they kept my spirits up.

Practice started to no longer feel like something I would have to force myself to go

through. The thing I thought I would struggle the most with was batting. The team decided we

would all collectively meet in the gym and then drive to magic castle to practice batting. Before

we left, I went to coach Richmond's room to collect my bag he said “Now batting is one of the

hardest things to do in sports so don’t get discouraged if you can’t hit the ball.” When we got
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there, I was briefly introduced on the way to bat. Balls flew past me with a loud boom after they

hit the back of cage. Before long I got the hang of it and I was able to hit the ball. The sting of

the ball hitting the bat felt like a million-wasp stinging my hand or smacking my hand into a rose

bush.

We lost many games at first but the game I talked about previously, we won, and it felt

amazing. After that I no longer worried that I was going to embarrass myself and my confidence

grew. When baseball ended, I was awarded the Most improved player award which just

encouraged me to not be afraid to try new things. This was a real turning point for me as I started

to get into new sports and try new things.