My childhood was a constant struggle of up and downs, being anything but ordinary. Never meeting my father who had left my mother and I, and my mother who was my whole world, died of cancer when I was only five years old. At the age of five, with nobody willing to take me into their homes, I was put into the system and was placed in a foster home. Moving into a a overly average 5000 square foot house that was secluded from others, occupied by a married couple and a daughter a year younger than me, I began my life in the city of Benham, Kentucky where the population barely exceeded 530.

Rick, my foster dad, a retired professional basketball player, was now the varsity basketball coach for the local high school team. Since he wasn’t blessed with a son, he ingrained in me the fundamentals of basketball. Teaching me how to dribble, perform a correct jump-shot, and maintaining a formidable defense. After many years of training, playing on a wide-range of teams, and traveling to many major cities for training camps,I began to sneak upon my freshman year where I attend the high school my foster dad coached.

The next year, I was a freshman, matriculating into the same high school my foster father both taught and coached at. By now I had hit my growth spurt and stood at six foot six and weighed approxiametely two hundred and ten pounds. It was prominent, as the son of the coach and hardcore training over many years, I would be playing basketball. Coaching twenty years at a perrenial losing school and obtaining two potientallly star quality players , my foster dad began to develop and new system for the varsity team. Since I wasn’t going to be playing any games my freshman year, Rick put me on a rigid weight lifting program and provided me with the essential supplements for my success. Not seeing any playing time my freshman year, I focused my attention on lifting weights, and if I was not working on fundamentals in basketball, I was spending every free moment in the weight room and using the weights to help me build more muscle. Initially my weight had dropped to a low of one hundred ninety pounds, but it slowly came back. By time freshman year was ending, I was back to my normal two hundred ten pounds, but now very little fat was visible on my body. I was bigger, leaner , and much quicker after just a year of being in the program. During the summer that year, My dad had paid for me to go join a summer basketball camp at University of Kentucky. Being a former University of Kentucky student athlete graduate, my dad had many colleagues and buddies who coached or were trainers for the sports teams. There I met a old college buddy of my father, who had played basketball with him and there I began my workout. Rick already had plans that as a sophomore, I would start at the small forward position along with the other guy, Blake, the point guard, the other potential star that came into the high school with me.

By time my sophomore year rolled around, people began taking notice on me. Girls who had once never looked towards my direction, were now taking second, longer looks and often smiling at me. I walked past my foster sister, Emily, and her friends and overheard one of her friends mentioning how muscular and hot I became. As nice as it was to receive attention i had not had before, my main focus was basketball and I had to remove those thoughts from my mind. After many workouts during the next couple of months, not to much longer the winter season came around and along with it came basketball season. Not really worried about not making varsity since I made it last year, I still worked to the extreme extent just in case they got a couple of decent recruits or transfer students. Everyday after practice, I would make my way to a newly built, secluded health club called Fitness and finesse. My first day there I was shocked to see , Blake, our starting point guard, there working out by himself. Seeing as we were teammates I offered to workout with him and ever since we had been working out together both in the club’s basketball court and weight room, developing good chemistry with each other.

Even though I tried to be oblivious to my surroundings if it was not related to basketball, but no matter how hard I tried I always seem my eyes always seemed to fixate themselves on Cara, one of Emily’s friends, and a competitor with Emily for prettiest girl in our year. She was in all of my classes this year and although we did not talk often, she still sat beside me in some of my classes. Saying she was beautiful would be an understatement. She stood close to six foot two and was the co-captain of both the varsity basketball and varsity volleyball team. She had an amazingly fit, enticing athletic body for a modest sixteen year old. Her facial features were a sight to behold, she could have put any famous super model to shame, her golden skin smooth, her large deep cool gray eyes, and dirty blonde hair that stopped just below her shoulders.

Around this time, we were having a hardcore practice a week before our first game and then injuries began to play games with me. When I was going to collect a rebound, I landed awkwardly and later found out I had rolled my ankle. This injury put me in a ankle brace for about eight weeks, and would end my sophomore season before it even started. Since he wanted me healthy for the next year, Rick had me sit and heal for the whole year. Since my injury, I had been working out light to maintain my body build and not let any muscle turn into fat. By the end of my sophomore year I had grown to six foot eight.
Early next year, Rick stepped into my room.