Sportography

CJ Mazzan

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As a kid, between the ages of 4-12, I was involved in four different sports. I was a very
athletic kid and always wanted to be in a sports league every season of the year except for
summer. I had a lot of parental support and motivation from friends and sports on TV. No one in
my family was every as athletic as a kid then I was. My mom only did gymnastics and my dad
only played two sports throughout his whole childhood. My two sisters never played a sport in
their childhood either. So my athletic abilities werent a genetic pass down from my family. I am
going to explain the different sports I was involved in from my childhood to my teen years, the
different motivations and obstacles in my sport career, and how they shaped me to be who I am.
In my childhood years, I participated in baseball, basketball, soccer, and football.
According to Richard Bailey, 63% of children under the age of 12 participate in at least one
sport. Baseball was the first sport I ever participated in and I started at the age of seven. My three
best friends from school were the main reasons I got into baseball because they were on the same
team and convinced me to join their team. My mom and dad were supporting me 100% because
they believed it would be healthy to be involved in outdoor activities. My dad offered to be
assistant coach and my mom was volunteer team mom so they could be close to me while I
participated in baseball. That was the start to my athletic career. After my first season of fall ball,
I knew from that point I always wanted to play a sport in every season. So my mom and dad
signed me up into basketball for the winter time. I loved the momentum of the game because it
was always fast pace and up tempo. Then that spring time, I signed up to play soccer because it
had the same momentum as basketball. I enjoyed playing soccer but really wasnt that good with
ball handling. But as a child, it was all about having fun, not winning. I did that combination of
sports for three years until I got bored of baseball because of the slow pace. This was about the
same time that my parents were getting separated. So during the spring time, I talked to both of
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my parents individually about playing football instead of baseball. My dad was all for it but my
mom was against it because she didnt want me to get injured. Tryouts then started up in the
beginning of August, so my dad went against my mom and brought me to the tryouts. They
ended up going to court because of it, but my dad didnt care because he knew I was happy. This
is where my first great memory that will stick with me for the rest of my life came in. I was
playing with kids who already have two years of football under their belt. I practiced hard every
day and tried to get the concept down. I started to realize that I could use my weight towards my
advantage because I was a big kid. In the first scrimmage game, I got to play ten snaps of the
ball. My emotions were running high because this was my first time. For the first nine snaps, I
wasnt a factor. On the last snap, I had to prove myself so I could make first string. I broke
through the line and chased down the quarterback on a pass play. I was slower than him but he
didnt see me coming. He was running out towards the sideline and eventually turned around to
run towards the middle of the field. As soon as he did, I was right there to hit him as hard as I
could. I made him fumble the ball and led us to score a touchdown. At the end of my first year, I
got granted most improve player of the year. From that moment on, football became my number
one sport. Then when I turned 123, I decided to go out for lacrosse instead of soccer because it
was more like football. Up until my high school years, I played football in the fall, basketball in
the winter, and lacrosse in the spring. In high school, I didnt make the basketball team, so I only
played football and lacrosse. This is where my only negative memory came in. My sophomore
year in high school, I tore my meniscus during two-a-days in football. My athletic trainer just
said it was only bruised and you could play through it. So I played four games on that tear which
made it worse. Finally I went to the doctors and found out I needed surgery on it to repair it. That
put me out for the rest of the football season and four games of the lacrosse season. That was the

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longest I went without sports and I was depressed every day because of it. To this day, I still feel
pain in my knee from that tear. According to David Swenson, knee injuries in high school sports
are the most common injury for every sport. I finished out high school with two varsity letters in
football and three varsity letters in lacrosse. Now that Im in college, I havent played on a sports
team.
My passion for being an athlete was first based off my friends encouraging me to play
baseball on their team. Then my dad witnessed my passion in sports, and helped encourage me
into whatever sport I desired. My dads job gave him free Redskin tickets for being the top
mortgage lender in the company. After going to a few games, I realized then that sports was
going to be my life. Of course as a kid you think you want to be a NFL superstar. My dad took
that to heart, and went behind my moms back to sign me up for football. He pressured me
everyday to be the best I could be and practice even harder. Yes I would get annoyed at him, but I
knew that his intentions were for my benefit to achieve my goal. As I entered my teen years, all I
did was train everyday to hopefully be in the NFL. When I entered high school, I started to
realize that the NFL was a far stretch goal. So I still trained hard to be the best in football as I
could be, but knew in the back of my mind that I wasnt going to the NFL. The passion I had in
sports when I was 12 lead to me wanting to be involved in sports for my whole life. It gave me
the passion to go to college to be a coach, so I can continue helping other teens follow their
passions.
My dad still pushed me every day for sports, making me run, do jump ropes, go to the
gym, and other training activities in the off season. My mom on the other hand didnt help train
at all. She was always saying your dad is pushing you to hard; youre good enough as you are;
you dont need to do all this extra training. This caused controversies between my dad, my mom,
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and I because they were divorced and I didnt know who to follow and trust. My dad would
always threaten to give up on helping me but make me realize I needed him. It took me up until
high school that my dad was there for my passion for wanting to be an athlete. When I started to
ignore my mom on that subject and started to follow my dad 100%, the fighting between all of us
stopped. That my parents involvement in my sports career.
As an athlete, I didnt have any obstacles concerning race, gender, or social class that
prevented me or encouraged me into any sports. I grew up in a area where everyone was treated
equal. As a kid, I remember a league paying the fees for this kid wanting to play football. His
parents were poor and couldnt afford it. So the league chipped in and helped so the kid could
participate in football. He ended up being really good and getting a full ride to Clemson
University. With the league chipping in like that, that kid got an equal opportunity to play sports
as other kids who could afford it. It also gave him the ability to go to college and better himself
educationally too. I was fortunate to grow up in an area where everyone chipped in to help each
other. There was no discrimination or certain standards an athlete had to meet to play. Everyone
got an equal chance to follow their passion in sports. I am aware that other areas arent like that.
According to the court case William Blasi v. Pennsylvania Argyl Area School District, there is
still race discrimination in high school towards African Americans. I was just lucky that I didnt
grow up around any discrimination at all.
With a general knowledge of my sports background, I will compare my experiences with
my dads sports career and Coach Dwights sports career when they were my age. My dad didnt
really have the opportunity to have friends influence him on what sports to play because he was
constantly moving around due to his dad being in the Navy. His mom didnt want my dad in
sports because she needed help around the house since she was alone most of the time. When my
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grandfather was home, he encouraged my dad to play any sports he wanted to. That is just like
my childhood because my dad was my primary encouragement in sports. His dad did the same
thing as my dad did by signing him up in football without his mom knowing. My dad only
played on year of football and realized it wasnt from him. He said, Team sports were never my
passion because I grew up independent and relying on no one to help. So when my dad entered
high school, he decided to try out for wrestling. And again, his mom didnt want him to but his
dad and him went behind her back. He turned out to be in the top ten wrestlers in the state. Even
with his success in wrestling, his mom never showed up to a game because she didnt support it,
but his dad was there when he wasnt on duty. That is just like my first two years in football. My
dad showed up to every practice and game, but my mom never showed up to any of them. My
dad ended up being on the varsity team all four years of high school, but when he tried out for
college wrestling at Virginia Tech, he didnt make the team. That is my dads whole sports career.
Coach Dwights athletic career was tough since he was African American. In 1960s, it was still
hard for African Americans to play sports in white leagues. At that time, Coach Dwight would
have been ten years old. He lived in Mississippi, and went to elementary and middle school with
only five other African Americans. When he turned ten years old, he tried out for football league
around his area. No coach picked him as a player, and to this day, he believes it was because he
is an African American. So he gathered all his friends everyday in his neighborhood and played
football that way. Backyard football is where he learned how to catch, throw, and run basic plays.
According to M.M Smith, in the early 1960s, it was uncommon for white leagues in sports to
have African Americans on the team even though they had the right to. When Coach Dwight
entered high school, he developed enough skill from backyard football to be the starting running
back all four years. He also got a full ride to Texas Tech to play football for them. He then got

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drafted to play for the Cleveland Browns after college. But in the first practice, he tore his ACL
and broke three bones in his leg by landing wrong. After that, he wasnt able to play football
anymore. Thats how he got into coaching so he could be around football the rest of his life.
Coach Dwights sports career differs from mine because his race kept him from playing in an
actually league during his childhood. The only similarities between my career and his are we
both tore something in our knee that prevented us from playing. Also, he ended up coaching so
he could be involved in sports, and thats what I want my career to be for the same reason as him.
In conclusion, I am working towards sports being in my life as a career. I am going to
college to get a degree in sports marketing. So when I get out of college, I can have a full time
job in promoting/marketing a gym and a part time job coaching a high school football team. My
future is connected to my passion in sports in my past. All the different sports I participated in
help me decide that sports are my life. Knowing that I cant participate in sports anymore,
pushed me into a new direction of coaching sports.

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Works cited
Bailey, R., Cope, E. J., & Pearce, G. (2013). Why do children take part in, and remain involved
in sport? A literature review and discussion of implications for sports coaches. International
Journal Of Coaching Science, 7(1), 56-75.
SWENSON, D. M., COLLINS, C. L., BEST, T. M., FLANIGAN, D. C., FIELDS, S. K., &
COMSTOCK, R. (2013). Epidemiology of Knee Injuries among U.S. High School Athletes,
2005/2006-2010/2011. Medicine & Science In Sports & Exercise, 45(3), 462-469.
Smith, M. M. (2001). Identity and citizenship: African American athletes, sport, and the freedom
struggle of the 1960s. Journal Of Sport History, 22(8), 305.
Parent Rebuffed in Claim that Athletics Policies Were Unconstitutional. Sports Litigation Alert
[serial online]. December 2, 2011;8(22):1. Available from: SPORTDiscus with Full Text,
Ipswich, MA. Accessed April 9, 2013.
Dashper, K. (2012). Together, yet still not equal? Sex integration in equestrian sport. AsiaPacific Journal Of Health, Sport & Physical Education, 3(3), 213-225.