Since I could remember, sports have been a part of my life. The first time I watched a football game at my house I saw how excited my dad and my uncles were. They taught me the rules and how the games were played. As a result, I grew up having appreciation for sports of all kinds. I have learned great lessons, picked up great habits as well as a great love and appreciation for sports. Not to mention, there was no greater rush to me than competing on a field or on a court. Both my mother and my father were three sport athletes; my mother ran track and played softball as well as basketball. Like my mother, my father also ran track and played basketball, but unlike my mother the third sport my father played was football. It is obvious that I picked up my love for sports from them.

As an illustration, growing up I played three sports which were football, basketball, and baseball and I am thankful to have played all three. They have brought me joy in my life and taught me valuable lessons such as discipline, patience and teamwork. Out of the three sports, baseball was my favorite. I recall the time when I was only seven years old, I just started my first year of playing baseball and I did not have a favorite baseball team nor a favorite baseball player. I was still learning the sport and was not sure how I really felt about the sport. At the present time, my dad was working for a security company and one day he came home from work with an autographed baseball bat, a pair of white and red baseball batting gloves and a Phillies baseball card. My dad then shared his story about the encounter he had with Jimmy Rollins, the starting shortstop for the Philadelphia Phillies. This was one of the happiest days of my life because I never met a professional athlete before, let alone receive a gift from them. He instantly became my favorite baseball player and the Philadelphia Phillies became my favorite baseball team.

Sports gave me a way of looking at life in a way I would not have if I have not had the opportunity to play these games. For this reason, I will always appreciate sports because of all things it has done for me and for others. Now that I am older and no longer playing sports at a competitive level that I once did in the past, I learned to appreciate higher level competition in anything that I do. However, sports still hold a special place in my heart. From time to time, I get together with friends to play sports to stay in shape or even just for fun.

Sports also is a great way to relieve stress. Similar to music, I believe sports and music go hand and hand. Hence, when I think about sports, specifically football and basketball, I think about hip-hop music and how they go hand in hand. Most hip-hop artists reference athletes and sports in their lyrics and most of them come from the same type of neighborhoods and upbringings so hip-hop relates to the up-tempo past of basketball and football players game style.