Coping With Change

I think the biggest change I've had to face was going to a new school. I was 15 years old when my family decided to move to a new town. The reason we had to move was my dad got a new job on the other side of the city that we lived close to. The move was a new oppurtunity for all of us. One of the perks of the move is my parents let me choose what town we moved to so I could go to the school I wanted to. When I was looking for the school, I decided to choose the one where I had the best oppurtunity of winning a state championship. I wasn't too worried about winning one that year, but was wanting one my senior year. I decided on a 3A school, Verdigris High School. My new school only had 350 students in the high school, alot smaller than my old one, which had over 550. I didn't know anybody at my new school. I had to force myself to meet new people. This was my sophomore year. In the spring that year was when I first thought I would have a chance of a state championship. We made it to the state tournament and won our first game, a game that we were picked to lose. In the second game, I played good, but we couldn't pull it out. Baseball helped me make new friends. Of course I had my friends off the team, but the people that came to watch the games knew me as well. My junior year went much of the same way. I was named team captain, but we couldn't make it to state. We had everybody returning so I knew that my senior year would be the time. School came and I had changed much. I went from being 5'10" and weighing 155 pounds at the end of my junior year, to 6'0" and weighing 178 pounds. People could not believe it. Everybody thought I had gotten on steroids, but the truth was I just worked out hard. By this time, I was well known throughout the whole school. I was named captain of the baseball team again and the team was predicted to win the state championship, uncontested by anybody. We had the team everybody wanted. Before the season started, trouble struck. We lost two players due to failing drug tests, another for stealing an ipod, and a fourth because he didn't feel like playing anymore. Through all that, we lost our head coach two weeks before the season started. We still made it to state that year, and I was known as a threat by the whole class. Something I wanted my sophomore year was just to be known in my school, my senior year, I was known throughout the whole state. We didn't win state that year, but I wasn't dissappointed by no means. I guess the way I coped with all the changes that happened in my life throughout the whole time was just by playing baseball and making friends along the way.