Everything I have learned about adversity, I learned between Elam Road and Horseshoe Trail in the South Dallas Neighborhood of Balch Springs, Texas. Education was never an important to my family. My biological father was a drug addict who spent more time in prison than out. My mother who gave it her all has had issues I would rather not discuss. My step father took us from a small town into a community that was very diverse....It was this community that taught me about life and about education...
Balch Springs is not Mayberry. I remember hearing about a murder down the street near the grocery store when I was in 7th grade. The kid who committed the murder was a 6th grader trying to prove his toughness to a local gang. This was the beginning but not the end of the education I would be taught while growing up in Balch Springs....
My Step Father was raised on these streets and felt that a street education was more important than any kind of education I would ever receive from a public institution....We learned to hustle, we learned to fight, to create divides because of the color of our skin, to form friendships based on protection rather than love....But there was always something more...
I had a desire....For some reason deep inside my soul, I felt that the way out of Balch Springs, Texas was with an education...I had witnessed what the street education would do to my life through the actions of my brothers and sisters, friends and enemies and truly believed that it was my way out....
The problems is I did not know how to do it....It was easy to get away with doing the bare minimum and relying on my street knowledge to get me through....and it worked for a long time.....
I graduated High School with a 2.1 GPA, scored just high enough on my ACT to accept a football scholarship and got to college not having a clue of how to study or prepare for life beyond athletics...
Life throws you curves. After 2 ACL surgeries and the realization that I was not as good as an athlete as I thought I was, my college career ended....Like a puff of smoke, my dreams of an education were gone.....and i had no clue where to turn....
Fast forward to this week....I have now finished not only my undergraduate degree but also my Masters degree.....and I can thank the streets of Balch Springs Texas for teaching me how to overcome...
What does this mean? No matter who you are, or where you are from, how you are raised or who your influences are.....you can do anything you want to in life as long as you put your mind to it......and overcome
