First Strides Towards Your EDGE

Picture this: it's your junior year of high school, you’re stressing out about the SAT you need to take in 3 days, you have two tests Friday, and you’ve got no time to do any of your actual homework for tomorrow. 

WHY???  

Answered simply - that’s the life of a student athlete in High School. Honestly, that’s a very average week for most high performing student athletes. While it may not seem like it's the most fun, if you work at it, boy can it be rewarding. However, this isn’t your traditional intro to the lifestyle. The best way I can think of to explain...is through stories - so grab some popcorn. 

The Big Apple

The first story brings us to New York, where a young boy, from a not-so-wealthy family, had aspirations to play professional tennis. He loved the sport, would even eat/sleep/breathe it. But that wasn’t ever enough. He was lucky to have some talent when it came to learning in school and was always a straight A student, but to be fair he was never properly tested. Yet, no matter his performance in school, he always prioritized tennis from the age of 3 up until high school. He played tournaments in his local area, in regional and even national settings - while he had some success, it was a far cry from his dream. 

At age 14, he decided that if there was ever a chance to play professionally and receive an education that was worthwhile in the process, it would be to play in college. A year later, he decided to start actively searching for where to attend college but had no idea where to start and where to go from there. He felt lost and helpless, hell most of his first round of emails had false information in them…(no wonder some coaches didn’t respond)! After hours upon hours, over an 8 month time frame he ironed out a final list of choices. He got down to 3 schools and ended up choosing a high level institution with a Division I tennis program. This brings us to the present day, where he still currently competes on the team and studies to receive an Engineering degree. What did he learn that was most valuable along his journey? The end result is not what truly mattered, but rather the journey itself and the people he met along the way.

And Now….The Far East

“Student Athlete”, what an over-glorified term. To most people, it represents social status beyond normal standards. But to those who live out the term daily, it means sweat, tears, and learning till joy and achievement. 

Now the very embodiment of this term, the individual in question still remembers the first time he heard about it as a teenager in the Eastern part of the world. His spirit was ignited knowing that through his hard work, combining Academics and Athletics would not merely be a dream. Aspiring to be admitted into a system which could help him best achieve that goal, he had decided that his next step was to be a part of the intercollegiate sports system in U.S. 

However, he found it self-evident that a dream easily achieved, truly isn’t a dream anymore. Now we fast forward to his senior year of high school, it was at this time he was desperately striving to perfect the English language fluency test (the TOEFL exam). Simultaneously, there was the great stress of traveling to other cities in order to be eligible to take the SAT and fearing for his level of tennis not being adequate to be recognized by U.S. college coaches. Along with the time crunch, geographical disadvantage, and lack of information or guidance about the whole process, he was pushed dangerously close to the edge of giving up. But he didn’t. He spent years and years honing his mental and physical resolve as a student athlete. Incidentally, he developed a strong sense of resilience alongside a mindset geared towards growth whenever faced with adversity. As a result, he has also successfully become a Division I student athlete at a high-level institution and continues to play on their team as well.

Collision and Connection

Why did we just tell you these stories? What value could these have possibly provided? After all they may have sounded quite different, just with a similar ending. The reality is: they are the same story, merely with two different points of view. When two people with very similar skill sets and very similar interests find themselves chasing similar goals, it is only natural for their two paths to intertwine. In this scenario, we have two people from vastly different upbringings in different parts of the world, different educational backgrounds, different cultures. Both of these people faced hardship in their own right - however, these hardships came to shape who they are and allowed them to develop core intrinsic values such as ambition, perseverance, and passion. 

An ambition that drives both of them to seek personal improvement daily.

A perseverance that drives them past obstacles that seem too daunting.

A passion that burns bright to help others reach their goals and even more.

That is why our TEAM stands (virtually) here today in front of YOU (the reader). This is a call to disrupt the norm. What is it that you want the most: Is it to achieve great heights as an athlete? Is it to get the best possible education you can? Something tells us that if you’re reading this, you know you deserve all of that and more. Join us, share in our experiences and the experiences of others, learn from the people that have been where you want to be, and most importantly cherish their lessons, for it is both the lessons you learn and how hard you work for them that make all the difference.