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Chasing the Dream of College Sports

By Steven Shin, Northwestern Oklahoma State University football player

Many high school athletes dream of competing at the college level, but for some this will always remain a dream. My name is Steven Shin. I want to share how I earned an athletic scholarship to play college football. As a kid, I loved playing football with my father. Weekends of watching football along with playing little league football inspired me to play at the next level. I woke up every weekend at around 7 AM to practice with my dad. After years of hard work, I ended up securing a starting spot as a receiver on the Junior Varsity team at my high school. 

Although I was a starter, this did not mean my spot was secure or that I should be satisfied with my current performance. I wanted to be the best. Knowing my dream was to play college football, I knew I had to work as hard as I possibly could to put myself in the best position to achieve my goal. I woke up at 5:30 every morning to go to conditioning with the team, then I had class from 8 AM until 3 PM. I lifted weights from 3 PM until 4:30 PM, watched game films as soon as we lifted until 6 PM, then the team practiced until 9:30 PM. This meant that I spent a total of 16 hours a day at school on top of homework, tests and projects I needed to do. 

Having a dream means a cherished aspiration, ambition, and ideal. I took that to the next level and I became obsessed. Time management for me was one of my top priorities. Most nights I would be up until 2 AM trying to finish all the work I had. This takes a toll on you if you do not love the game as much as you say you do. Every day I was tired and sore yet I worked hard to maintain a 3.8 GPA while also doing my best everyday to become a stronger and better athlete. My body was extremely exhausted and sometimes I could barely get out of bed. But if I learned one thing from chasing my dream, it was that success is in the mindset. This is also what helped me learn mental toughness, because when I was extremely tired and had been up for 16 hours straight working, without taking a break, it built strong character inside that I think will last a lifetime. 

I even had some of my teachers tutor me while I was on lunch and nutrition breaks which is why I spent a lot of my time in classrooms while I ate. Because I was constantly studying, I needed to find a way to keep doing that and also have schools look at me and offer me scholarships. This is when my head coach helped me by reaching out to schools trying to get me a college offer. I also emailed 100 schools myself and sent them my film. I ended up graduating with 21 scholarship offers from schools all around the country. I am thrilled to say I accepted the offer from Northwestern Oklahoma State University. If I could reach out to someone in high school right now, I would say to chase your dream. You will achieve your dreams if you work as hard as you possibly can towards it. The real question is, how bad do you really want it?

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