Draft #1

Noah Agwu

Maddie Kahl

ENC2135-142

21 March 2018

Personal Essay

In a small corner of a small town there lies an institution by the name of Alexis I Dupont high school. On the campus lies a piece of concrete that has taught me everything about life and made me the man I am today. A concrete slab with a metal ring drilled on top. On the back side of the circle there is a beat up rusty metal gate that surrounds the back half. Looking out to the front there are yards and yards of uncut grass, dandelions, and open field. To the left lies a tree line that displays the beginning of a wooded area. This, sacred ground to me for many years, was my high school discus circle. I discovered this place at the age of 14 when the track and field coach asked me to try throwing discus. Ever since then that circle has changed my life. This piece of concrete made its first legitimate impact on my life at the age of 15 I broke my leg in 3 places at my high school basketball game. I was forced to take a leave of absence from school and when I returned throwing discus was the only thing the doctors would clear me to do. On April 8th, 2014 I had my first practice since my injury in November. I was not the same athlete I was before my injury and this made me very angry with myself. This day started me on a path that would eventually change my life.

Growing up my siblings and I did not have a stable childhood. My mother was unemployed, never had a job and my father didn’t live within 13 hours of us. As I got older the dream of a college education seemed to dwindle each year. After my injury in early high school I began to scramble to find any way to get a college education as basketball was my only option at the time. When I was cleared by doctors April 8th to throw discus I successfully completed the season and on the last practice of the season I stood in the circle faced with a dilemma. I knew if I wanted a college education I would have to put my all into whatever I committed too, weather that be basketball, track, or anything for that matter. I ended up making the best decision of my life choosing to invest all my time training to throw discus. So, from then on for the next three years I trained alone and spent countless hours every day teaching myself how to throw discus. There was no coach at my high school so every day it was just me and the circle for years. Eventually I began to take my personal life to the circle and use it to help me. A lot of self-communication was spoken. Me telling myself what I liked about what was going on both in that moment and in life in general. A lot of discus reps and drills where done, endless in fact. The whole time I heard the satisfying sound of nature. A lot of singing birds, the faint sound of running water from rivers nearby, the sound of animals brushing through the woods, my own yells of frustration where all things one would hear. Always a sense of home was felt there.