High School Jock? High School Dropout? | Teen Ink

High School Jock? High School Dropout?

May 24, 2010
By Anonymous

Carson James was a prodigy child. He was an only child. His dad, John, was a baseball player for the Chicago Cubs. Carson James, known as CJ to his friends, loved sports. Ever since he was young he played football, baseball and basketball. He would even go to a soccer camp every summer.

When he was in elementary school, his schedule was pretty much filled with practices. His days consisted of school, practice, and homework. Not your typical elementary students’ day. There was no time for his friends really. He loved the sports, but he wished that he could pick a few to play so that he would still have time to play with his friends. He wanted to talk to his dad about this, but he knew it would do no good. His dad wanted him to be in as many sports as possible, because this would increase the chance of him becoming a big sports star someday. So CJ just kept his mouth shut and did what his dad said.

As CJ entered his middle school years, it just got worse. He still enjoyed playing the sports, but his dad was more excited about the wins and more upset about the losses than CJ was. Carson constantly practiced. Even outside of team practices, any time that wasn’t spent at school or on homework he was outside playing with his dad. At times his dad would even tell him,

“Don’t worry about your homework, you’re going to be a professional athlete, grades don’t matter.”
CJ knew not to listen to his dad when he said this. That was just ridiculous. Grades are important no matter what.

When CJ was in eight grade, his dad had a serious conversation about what sports he wanted to play in high school. Carson said he wanted to pick one and just concentrate on that one, but his dad didn’t agree. John decided that Carson would play football in the fall, basketball in the winter, track in the spring, and baseball in the summer. At his school, baseball was a summer sport. Carson couldn’t believe that his dad was making him do this. How was he going to be involved in all of the different sports and still manage to keep up on school work? John didn’t care about that though, according to him, school work didn’t matter. As long as Carson’s grades were high enough to play sports, John was satisfied.

In September, Carson started high school. He had already made the football team, and had already been having practices since August. His first year playing sports was pretty rough. He knew it’d be hard to keep up school work, but he didn’t know it was going to be this hard. His grades started to fall. His dad, John, decided that it would be best to hire someone to “tutor” him. More of, do his homework and teach him enough for him to pass the test. At the end of freshman year, he was star of the JV football team, Varsity basketball team, JV track team and Varsity baseball team, but only had a 2.5 GPA.

Start of his sophomore year, he tried out for the football team again, this time he made Varsity. His dad was thrilled. He was not. He knew this meant more pressure from his dad. Again this year he was in football, basketball, track and baseball. He became a very aggressive person. He was always angry and never happy. He tried doing his homework himself, but his dad would yell at him. He started to wonder if he should just quit all the sports. He had dreams of becoming a doctor. That would never happen if his dad had a say in it. At the end of sophomore year, he was still in all four of the sports, on varsity for them all. He now had a 2.9 GPA.

Start of his junior year, he started missing football practices. His dad was furious. And told him he better start going or all of his free time to spend with his friends would be taken away. He went to practices from now on, all of them. Even though that “friend time” was pretty much nonexistent, he knew not to make his dad mad. When spring rolled around it was time for track, Carson was burnt out. He kept thinking about his dream. He wanted to help people with cancer; none of this was possible though. He started to wonder if maybe it was possible? He thought of a few ways to make his dream come true but knew that none of them were realistic. Track season was now over, and on to baseball. It was summer now, and only one year left of high school. Sports wouldn’t be over for him. He’d be playing them for the rest of his life if it was up to his dad.
Carson had a friend, Brian. He lived about four hours south of where Carson lived. They had met at a football camp a few years back. They stayed in contact with each other and become fairly good friends. He decided to talk to Brian about how he felt, and inform him of the whole situation. Brian gave him his advice. A week later, Carson bought a plane ticket. Two weeks after that, Carson was boarding the airplane, and on his way to live with Brian. CJ’s parents didn’t know where he was going. They thought he was just going to stay over at a friends house over night. Little did they know that from that day on, they wouldn’t have much contact with their son.
When CJ arrived at Brian’s he was very excited. It was a new start for him. One year left of high school, he wanted it to be his best year. CJ went to school with Brian, at Ridge Town High School. He was not involved in any sports this year. CJ decided that it would be best to concentrate on his school work. He had a lot of making up to do in order to fulfill his dreams of becoming a doctor. He stayed up late every night studying. CJ realized that this whole schoolwork thing actually wasn’t too hard if you had the time to study.
At the end of his first semester as a senior at Ridge Town High School, he had a 3.78 GPA. He was so proud of himself. He sent a letter home to tell his parents of his newest achievements. He received a letter back from his dad saying,
“You’ve got it all wrong Carson. Come back home and play sports. I talked to your coaches, they’ll take you back onto the team.
Love,
Your Dad.”
This made CJ more mad than anything. Now he was never going to write home again.

Carson started to apply for college. He didn’t know if he’d be able to make it into any good colleges to become a doctor, but he thought he’d give it a shot. CJ decided to apply to UW-Madison. He heard they had a pretty good Medical field. He took hours on his application, he knew it would have to be perfect to even have a slight chance of getting accepted. Three weeks after CJ sent in his application to UW-Madison, he got a letter back from the school. He was put on the wait-list. CJ didn’t give up hope. He was happy enough to be put on the wait-list.

His last semester in high school, he tried even harder at his school work. He rarely went out with his friends. He wanted to get a 4.0 this semester. He received a 3.9 GPA. Graduating with cumulative 3.5 GPA. When he saw this, he thought there was no chance of being accepted. In mid-June, he received another letter from UW-Madison, he was accepted!

In Fall he attended UW-Madison to become a doctor. Seven years later, he graduated medical school with a 4.0 GPA, he is know known as Dr. Carson James. His parents received a letter from the campus notifying them. They continuously tried to contact Carson to congratulate him on his newest achievement. He wanted nothing to do with them.


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