Full Court Basketball Clinics

This week I spoke with coach Dawson, who is in charge of the Heart To Heart program here at FRA.  I told him about the project I am doing, and he seemed interested.  I asked him to send me the contact information of the students and parents of the students in the Heart To Heart program.  The Hear To Heart program at FRA is similar to the special ed departments at public schools.  This program gives kids who have down syndrome the opportunity to attend a great school like FRA. I have also communicated with the athletic faculty in order to use a gym.  Luckily a close friend of mine who is struggling to find people to attend his clinics is hosting one the same day I was planning to.  I will be joining him and bringing other kids along.  I think that this will be even better than with just the Heart to Heart kids.  I think it will be a god opportunity for the kids to be able to interact with each other in a fun way.  Thank You.

This week the Basketball games were canceled due to the long holiday weekend, but that did not stop progress.   On Friday I came up with the idea to do some clinics with some of the kids in the school’s heart-heart program.   Unluckily the man who runs the program was off coaching at the state wrestling meet, which our wrestlers did quite well at, so when I see him Monday I will talk to him about getting the contact information for the parents of the kids in the program.    This week I also got to attend a great event held by Bet Buddies of Tennessee.   Best Buddies is a worldwide program which pairs kids with special needs with a buddy who hangs out and just becomes friends with the people.   I attended the annual prom with my school.   The prom was held at the Bridgestone Arena, so it is a very big deal.   I saw many of the kids who I had played basketball with.   This was another great experience where people with disabilities and oth...

Today I had a formal interview with my mentor, and I learned more than I had originally thought I would. My specific form of interview was a basic question and answer.  I was unable to attend my regular basketball games to to the games I was playing in, which went fairly well. We won one lost one.  I have begun looking into locations to host practices for Sundays when I cant make the Saturday games so I can still get a little help in, But most importantly I got my interview done.  My main takeaway from the interview was to have patience an to really focus on strengths rather than weaknesses.  I learned many things about the type of work Stuart has done and it really interested me.  She shared with me many different stories about people overcoming adversity and having fun while doing it.  The stories made me interested in possibly pursuing a similar career in the future.  As someone who competes in athletics the most important thing that I learned was...

This week I communicated again with my friend Stewart in order to set up a more formal interview.  I am also working on different questions in order to be ready during the interview.  Hopefully the questions I write will help me to learn more about the best way to follow through on my project. I am very interested in how the work she has done changed the way she feels about athletics and the ways her work has impacted her.  I am also looking into starting private work with my team for the days that I might not be able to make the normal scheduled times.  I am starting to make a list of contacts of the people on my team in order to communicate to them when they would like to practice.  My team only includes about four kids, so I am branching out to family friends who have children to make the practices a little bigger so they can be more fun. Thank you!