Azar At Boston Marathon Memorial
Today is Monday. This week started off easy with a light day of school and workouts in Boston from 6-8 with Coach Boswell. I want to talk about Nutrition, and how it impacts athletes. When I was a younger I ate everything. Everything really started to kind of change around the 6th grade. I started thinking about what I ate and when I ate. For all of the people reading this, I want to tell you that Nutrition is very important to the success of an athlete. If you see documentaries or a TV show on NBATV or ESPN, you will see how athletes eat. Looking back, I remember one specific time. I was watching a training camp on the New York Knicks, and when they went to a team lunch, they all were eating salads, pasta or baked chicken. It had never occurred to me how else athletes get their bodies besides working out. That right there is when I started to focus on what I ate. I started trying to get fit, and stronger. I started to see a difference in your performance as an athlete. Peace Diary.
What Up Diary, Today is Tuesday, and today, I was thinking a lot about how much success Expressions has been having on the EYBL Circuit. From the outside looking in, you wouldn’t understand. In the Expressions program, everyone is family, and that is exactly how it feels. I have learned so much already from the older players especially the 17u team. They give me advice when I am on the court, about my performance, and other things off of the court. I feel like they believe in me more than I believe in myself sometimes. For example, Jared Wilson-Frame (on the 17u team) and I both came over to Expressions Elite from CBC. This year, he has had an impact on me and a couple of other players on my team. It seems like he understands everything that we do, and he has good advice for us. It is the little things like that that go unnoticed. He is like my big brother, and I look up to him in a way that I don’t look up to many other people. All of the pieces to the Expressions Elite puzzle are starting to fall into place. Until Tomorrow…
Good Morning Diary, Do you remember those kids that used to be absolutely dominant on the 10u or 11u level, but when you see them now they haven’t improved or aren’t playing anymore? It’s crazy how people stop growing, how they drop their work ethic, and how they don’t get any better. I used to be chubby, and small. I was a little-big man. I used to love playing in the low post. I could have easily just said that basketball wasn’t for me, but I didn’t. When people are good and they become dominant at one point, they lose focus because once you’re on top, where else is there to go? Really, think about that. A lot of people don’t like to work on their weaknesses. I have so many weaknesses so I don’t mind practicing on getting better. Seeing people not improve and lose their focus has just taught me more morals, values, and principles. Their slack is my gain. You learn something new everyday, and today I learned that you have to maintain your focus and hard work and you will stay as one of the top. When you aren’t working on trying to succeed, somebody else is working that much harder to succeed. We all have to stay focused on something and we all have weaknesses. Hopefully a college coach will want a kid that is not that fast or big but can shoot a little and works hard in school. Peace Diary.
What Up Diary, Today is Thursday, and it was a good day for me in general. It started off with a first period Humanities class from 8:40-10. After school was over, it was time for baseball practice. When practice was finished, I headed into Boston with my dad and Jermaine. Jermaine and I had a personal workout. Jermaine is going to Rivers with me next year. It should make high school very interesting. We will have a really good team if everything works out. If we lived closer to each other, we would probably hang more. I’ve been struggling shooting the ball lately because people have told me to jump when I shoot and get some air under the ball. I was shooting the ball flat to the front of the rim. It’s hard to remember everything that everybody tells me but I try. Anyways, the workout that we had was a good one, and when we left, we definitely felt the hard work in our bodies. Haha. Good Night Diary.
Hey Diary, Today was one of the best days in awhile for a couple of reasons, but the main reason is my baseball game. We won 10-3. As you should know by now, I am not good at baseball, but today I got my first hit of the year. I was surprised by all of the love and support from my teammates and coaches. It really showed how much they cared, and what they thought of me. Even if I would have struck out, I am 100% that I would have had the same exact response with excitement and love. I learned something new from this experience. It showed me how I should act when somebody who isn’t as good at basketball or football messes up or make a mistake. At the end of the day, your performance doesn’t matter. If you are a good person, people will have love for you and support you. This was something that I won’t forget throughout my entire life. The love was that strong. I know I always say it but I have learned so much from Rivers. Peace Out Diary.
What Up Diary, Today is Saturday, and it was the complete day for me. I caught up on some sleep until about 10. Then, from about 10:30-1 I did a personal core workout that maxed my muscles out. After I finished that workout, the rest of the day was devoted to relaxing and running around doing errands. I went down to the Boston Marathon Memorial in Copley Square, and it is crazy to see how good the people of the U.S. are. It was really sad to see everything in person for myself. I saw a quote today on one of the cards at the memorial and it said: “They (the terrorists) wanted to make life bad for the people here in Boston, but it only showed how good those people of Boston really are”. This quote means something to me. Boston is one of the proudest cities, and the people of Boston will do everything for the love of their city. Once somebody lives in Boston for awhile, they come to love it. I feel like no matter where you are from, you should love where you are born.
Good Afternoon Diary, Today is Sunday. I hate when I do not have tournaments on the weekend. I was unsure what was going to do. We were thinking about going to watch some games in Boston, until I realized that there were NBA games being played today. I’m glad that the Celtics were able to hold off the 4-0 sweep against the Knicks. Brandon Bass did a great job “locking up” Carmelo Anthony. I find it pretty funny that the commentators were saying that the Celtics did a good job of shutting Carmelo down because he still had 36 points and 7 rebounds. That sounds like a pretty good game to me. Haha. Anyways, all of my homework is done and all of my chores are done, so I feel 100% refreshed for the upcoming week. The Mass State Championships are this upcoming weekend, so I will keep everyone updated.
Peace Diary.
