“I used to live in Atlanta before I moved to Houston.

It was there when I realized I had a thing for basketball. When I was [in Atlanta], my friend Kristof, who was my neighbor at the time, gave me the inspiration and passion to start playing.

Around the third grade, my dad and [Kristof] started teaching me how to play. Kristof used to teach me basic skills like how to shoot, dribble and pass during elementary school. Not much after, I realized basketball was really my thing.

Up around sixth grade, I decided I wanted to do [basketball] for a living. I wanted to keep going, feel my passion, strengthen my skills and grow stronger. In eighth grade, I made the varsity team at my school and they put me in the starting lineup. I started performing really well and even won MVP at the end of the year.

After that, I moved to Houston and kept playing basketball. I made the JV team this year and I’ve been starting to improve. In my latest games, I’ve been close to averaging a double-double, where you score more than 10 points and more than 10 rebounds. I feel I’ve shown the ability to be a high-contender guard.

I used to let people talk down to me, they’d trash-talk me and degrade me. It’d get tiring, listening to all that. But there was a point where I realized, there’s a lot of people that have to wake up dealing with the same stuff, often a lot worse than me.

So I stopped letting everyone mess with my mind. I know to get where I want, I’m gonna work hard and all that hard work is gonna pay off. I know that if people tell you that you can’t do anything, they’re wrong.”