My first home was in Ole Forge. People related it as a ghetto neighborhood and gave a title for everyone who lived there. Not everybody chose to live there. My parents didn't have enough income to buy a normal house yet, so they settled for what they could afford at the moment. There were a lot of bad children that lived in that neighborhood. My mom sometimes says it corrupted my older brothers. There use to be fights every day. My cousin lived up the street so we weren't distinct to everyone. My older cousin Angelique made sure I was always safe and if someone were to pick on me she would beat them up. No questions being asked. They called the children who lived there baebae kids which didn't make sense because not everyone was the same. I was humbled and never got in trouble but stereotypes thought we were all bad. I remember I went outside to ride on my toy horse and the police came to my house asking questions because there was a dead body across the street in the trash can. My siblings and i use to go in the woods and one time my sister got stuck in quick sand. We all pulled her out and made sure she was safe. After 3 years, we moved to Spotsylvania. We ended up buying a new house. It was nice and comfortable.I could start school finally. I was just happy we moved from that horrible place.

It all started when I was with my older brother Desmond. They use to tell me about how good I was going to be at football because it ran in the family. I use to have to walk around with them and just watch but when I turned seven everything change. I signed up for my AYF(American Youth Football) team called the Broncos and Desmond was playing with the older Broncos. He use to always tell me if I wanted to be a star and good then I would have to put in extra work. He made me go against my cousin VJ and we use to cover each other. Desmond made me and him have the biggest rivalry whenever we played to see who would come out on top. He told me just because I'm smaller than everyone doesn't mean I can't be the best one out there. To increase my hit tolerance he made me go against him and his high school friends. It was just a normal game of backyard football. He use to tell his friends to hit me like if he were me. I will never forget the time he gave me a pitch and I out ran every one and I tried to cut it back and his friend who was the starting linebacker for Massaponax at the time drilled me. I got the wind knocked out of me and Desmond got mad because I didn't want to get up, so he picked me up and punched me telling me "Are you going to do this every time you get hit hard? If that's the case walk your soft *** home I'm not watching you!" That speech made me so mad and me and Desmond ended hitting the linebacker with a high low hit. It's crazy because getting hit by them made it so simple to get hit by my teammates. I will never forget that moment. It made me who I am today. Desmond watched all of my games before he played and told me what I had to do. People said me and Desmond use to hit the same and run the ball the same. Both of our teams ended up winning the conference,state, and regional championships.We were suppose to play in the national championship tournament but the teams parents couldn't afford it. He is one of my biggest role models. We still to this day go outside and throw the ole pigskin. It's kind of crazy because he played quarterback, running back, receiver, and basically everything on defense. He makes sure I'm always on top of my game when it comes to corner and receiver.

Nature is wonderful. I remember how me and my brother use to just stare at the sky imaging each cloud. We use to believe that the sky was like Spongebob's sky filled with flowers. We made a clubhouse that only we could enter. It was made out of sticks and had a rock barrier around it as if we thought it was a gate to keep people out. One time I went back there by myself and got my foot stuck in quick sand. The more I tried getting myself out the harder it was. I started to scream for my brother. He ran into the woods as fast as he could. He pulled me out with ease and I was crying. He told me that it was going to be our secret, but I couldn't come out there by myself anymore. To this day my parents still don't know about that situation. We still continued to go back out there until we got to old for it. We even made a little ramp so we could act like we were dirt bike champions. We never seen the point in playing a game and staying inside when you have the great outdoors. My mom use to complain about how much time we spent in the woods. We felt like Batman and Robin when we were together. To this day our fort still stands. We reminisce every now and then how we use to be. Its as is you can remember the good times forever.

It all started when I was in the 5th grade when my mom bought me steel 10s. They were my first serious pair of Jordans but then my foot grew, so I had to go to releases instead. I wasn't old enough to get a ticket so my mom said she will just start buying me shoes again in 8th grade and high school. She started buying me shoes that I didn't want so I started going with her to the stores , but they didn't have them that I wanted. My mom bought me 60 pluses for the moment and I had to be patient to get more shoes. I started to get more and more shoes the summer of 8th grade. I never wore them though.When i started wearing my shoes people started looking at me differently as if they wanted my shoes. One time me and my brother wore matching 4s and a group of guys started to follow us. Then they asked us to take them off and me and my brother were ready to fight then and they just walked away. He told me they were too expense and never let anyone take anything from you. He taught me the ins and outs of the shoe game. I eventually got to the point I'm at now. I have two pairs of 11s as of now. My brother has four pair of 4s and three pair of 7s. We are on the rise to become what we always dreamed of. We want to become legendary sneakerheads and own every pair of Jordans. It's possible but will take alot of time but were willing to be patoent.

My coaches always get me and Justin confused. No one can tell us apart from behind with pads on. I personally think we don't look nothing alike at all. I remember when we were doing dolly woods and I got tired so I put my hands on my hand and coach Yates yelled at me calling me Justin. I took my helmet and yelled I wasn't Justin and I had to do bear crawl up and down the field. I had to go against Justin in a hitting drill. As soon as we both got up there Coach Yates said the twins! It's crazy because we both don't like playing offense. I guess it's because of our height and body size that people get us confused. People say we run the same as well. His number was eight and mine was eighteen this year. People use to get our numbers mixed up all the time.All of the coaches get us confused. Our teachers even get us mixed up. I get called Justin at least 2-3 times a day. It makes me mad because we don't look alike. The only thing i can say we have in common is our personalities and the fact we work probably the hardest out of everybody except for Conlan. Were always supporting each other and making sure neither of us fall behind. We do what we have to do on the field. He is my brother.

My dream my whole life has been to make it to the NFL. I use to dream about being in a stadium full of fans chanting my name. I use to be nervous about hitting because I felt I wasn't big enough. My brother use to tell me he was smaller than me and he use to hit people so hard they would leave with a concussion. He told me size never matter and hard work pays off. He basically trained me to be better than him since that day till now. I use to feel like I was never good enough and I wasn't as fast as the other kids. I just never really applied my self to work until the 8th grade. I knew that I had to work to be good but good was never good enough for me. I wanted greatness. I told myself to prove everyone wrong. I needed to prove myself wrong. God has blessed me with the talent. I just need to work hard like how I still do. I promised my brother that I will full fill his dreams where he failed. He believes in me and that's all I need. That's why me and my class work so hard. It's not because we want to look bigger. We wanted greatness and to win a state championship. Something that no other class has yet to do. I know that me and onlan are still going to work hard every day. That's all that matters.

My youth football team was playing in its first championship tournament ever! We headed to Colonial Forge to take on the Virginia Beach Cheifs and the Virginia Beach Titans. Every team was undefeated except for the Stafford Raiders who we beat to clinch the number one seed. The first round was against the Titans . Our coach told us they went on two every single play so don't jump off sides. We were playing on our home field and were ready to go. Our first play of the game we scored. Our coaches told me and my cousin that we have to hit them in their mouth first. We ran a wing-t offense exactly what Courtland runs. We felt unstoppable and beat the Titans 34-0. We had to get back at it the very next day in the championship game against the Titans. It was a win or go home situation and whoever won this game went to Regionals. We came out that game ready. My cousin forced a fumble and I picked it up and they tried cheating saying around boy had the ball. The very next play the running back scored a 94 yard touchdown. This was the first time ever in the season that we were trailing. Later in that quarter we had to get our heads together and everyone was in a rhythm. We started driving down the field with ease. We scored three more touchdowns in that half and held them to nothing for the rest of the game. I was so happy that we win and we were going to Regionals. With all the hard work we put in we deserved it. I still have the picture that was tooken of us after we won. I'm still close with every one that was on that team and I still play with half of them at Ponax.

People think some kkids are born bad. Most kids just iminate their older sibling. It's all depends on how your raised basically. My cousin Elijah, my brother Desmond, and I were bad little kids. We just did things just to do them. One time we all went to South Carolina to go to the beach. We stayed at my pop pop mother's house. We went to Myrtle Beach the next day. My pop pop kept dunking us into the water and we got mad, so we pulled a prank on him. We told him to sit down and a seat we poured Kool Aide and ice in his seat. He got mad at us and cleaned it off. He tried sitting in another chair and we pulled it from underneath him. We got put on punishment for two hours. We thought that we needed to win this little war, so we put watermelon seeds on his face while he was sleep. We glued them there to stay in place. My grandma woke up laughing so hard she ended up crying. He told us to go outside for the rest of the day. We went outside and seen a geese nest. My grandma told me not to go near it but we were at war so we did it anyways. The mother geese ran after us because we had her eggs. I outran my brother and my cousin because I was scared. We got whoopings because the babies were in the eggs. I will never forget that trip.

One time I stayed over my cousins house. He told me that it was haunted but I didn't believe him. We stayed up the whole night telling ghost stories. When it was time to go to sleep we turned off everything. Somehow the TV turned back on by itself. We stared at each other asking why were we playing. We laid back back and we seen flashing light. I was scared and told him to stop playing around but he was already sleep. I laid back down and I heard someone call my name. I started crying and ran in the bed with him urging him to wake up. He told me he wasn't playing around and just to lay with him. I kept hearing my name being called so I put my head underneath the covers. I started to pray asking for the name calling to stop. I brought my head out of the covers and seen a black figure that was just standing there. I literally peed myself and started balling out in tears. I woke my cousin hip and he seen it too. We just hugged it each other tight and kept praying. Thirty minutes later the figure was gone. We refused to go o sleep for the rest of the night. I will never forget that black figure.

My mom supports everybody she can. She takes care of my great aunts and uncles. My grandma says she does too much for people , but she just says, " God blesses me so I'm going to keep getting my blessings." She is a very humbled person. She pays all of their bills and still puts food on the table. She tells me when times get hard turn to God. She's been working at Geico for eighteen years now. When she was low on money and needed extra she got another job and went to nursing school. I don't know how she maintained all of that but I know she is one of the strongest women I've ever known. There has been days when I didn't see my mom for three to four days. She worked night shift for Geico and went to nursing school during the day. She barely got any sleep but she still strived to make sure we were okay. She made miracles happen when you didn't have any hope. My mom is my world and she will always been. Even though me and my brother use to get in trouble a lot she still showed us love. There hasn't been a day I haven't told my mom I love her. She tells me to keep praying on everything and she has been through a lot. She doesn't want us to struggle like how she use to as a kid. She was the oldest so all of the responsiblitiy was thrown on her. She is my role model.

Mr.Tony has been my next door neighbor for quiet some years now. He is usually quiet but speaks when he sees you. He use to be a police cop in Washington, D.C.. He just recently retired from the forces. Most of the time now a days he has his blinds close and makes himself isolated. I feel like he misses the forces but his age prevents him from going back. He came down with a rare sickness. It required him to get surgery to get it out. He barely gets out of his house anymore. Me and my family go over to visit him and he tells us we brighten up his day. He sometimes looked stressed out sometimes. Before all of this happened to him he use to talk to me about football all of the time. He tells me what I need to work on and what can improve my game. I go over his house time to time and help him with his yard work. He has a riding lawnmower so there no need to help him with that. He is really kind and nice. He is going through a lot because he lost his son and this illness. I know God will be on his side and he will come out on top. If I forget he will let me come over or take me to my mom's job to get the key.

I use to have a staring contest with the new kid who came in my second grade class. She claimed that she was better than me in everything. We had a rivalry. Each day I would turn my head and she would be staring at me. I didn't like it so I asked her why she did it. She claimed that she use to look at the book shelf and not me. I turned my head and she was staring at me while I was talking to my teacher. I screamed why are you looking at me? She never responded but just stared. I apologized to her later that day because I felt bad. She forgave me and we ended up becoming close friends. Every day we would have staring contest to see who could keep their eyes open longer. Some days I would win, some days she would. We had each other back. When we had recess we played together. She moved later on in the year. I felt like I lost a sister but I had Nick in my class so I was alright. Me ans Nick continued to be close friends until today. We don't have staring contest though. I still miss my bestfriend from time to time .

Me, my brother, and my mom all have a special kind of bond. Especially me and my mom. My mom claims it's because were both Libras. Other people claim it because I'm a momma's boy. We know what were about to say before we even say it. They say great minds think alike. She is the women of my life. Like 2pac says," Aint a women alive that can take my momma place." We get in fights every once in a while but everything always end out okay. If i ever have a problem with something I go to my mom or brother. When my brother got locked up I didn't know what to turn to but my mom talked to me about everything. When I messed up my liver my mom wasn't around and she told me just to throw in the towel, but my brother wouldn't let me. He use to always give me lectures on how he wished he didn't mess up and actually played football. He tells me consistently never to give up on anything. He use to make me run sprints up and down hills and streets when I tried to give up. He made it in my mind that giving up on something you love is impossible. I'm the same way with him like I am with my mom. He tries to get me to learn from his mistakes and not to follow his path. When he has free time he takes me outside and he trains me. Makes sure my catching and route running is up to pace. They're important to me.

My mom was the oldest of her siblings. She used to have to come home from school and take care of them. When they were running low on funds my grandma use to make my mom go on the street with drugs and sell them. She told me she hated it with a passion. One day one of my grandma's friends come up to my mom and took her home and confronted my grandma about doing that to her. My mom has some type of anger towards my grandma before she use to put her guy friends before her kids. My mom then left her house in New Jersey and went South Carolina to live with my great aunt. She tells me it's crazy how much different it was there. She then moved back to New Jersey and met my oldest brother's dad. She was just a couple years older than me when she had my oldest brother. She worked he Geico up there. I'm taking it that they weren't seeing eye to eye so she moved to Virginia. She then met my older sister dad. They didn't last that long but my sister came along. She then moved back up to New Jersey for a couple of years. She moved back to Virginia and met my dad. She tells me not to follow her footsteps and make smart decisions. I look up to my mom. She is one of the biggest factors of my life. I love her to death.

My elementary teachers use to always brag on how smart I was. I use to think everything was a competition. I felt as if I needed to be ahead of everybody else in everything.