My Journey

Life is so complicated
And at times I hate it
In pursuit of my dreams
I idolized material things
That now seem overrated.
As a kid I wanted the big house and the fancy car
I even dreamed about being a superstar
In the public eye like, Beyonce, Oprah, and Maya Angelou
The people would love me
because they loved the way I flow.
I prayed from time to time
I didn’t want a new start
I just wanted God to give me what’s in my heart
Can’t he read my mind?
It’s like God never listened to me.
I have been struggling since before,
mom and dad I was one of four
we escaped from poverty
and made it to the middle class
but life was still hard for me
that’s why I hate to talk about my past.

I remember it like it was yesterday, the decision I made,
my mom always wanted us to attend university
she put us first you see
that’s why I stayed.
From Chi-town
to Georgetown
Freshmen year I was ready to put it down
Career highs, world renown
Academic –All American
Good Grades-Great Samaritan
but you see it all changed,
I never really played
and you got to get in the game
for people to remember your name.
As the year past, I was upset but didn’t sweat it,
since there was nothing I can do to change the past, I said just forget it.
I put all my energy into the game
when I was not practicing I would daydream
about how this year the fans would say my name
and although the seasons changed,
my situation did not,
I was still on the bench praying for my coach to give me a shot.

Another year passed
I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t playing
I wanted to leave
In the Bible it said first shall finish last,
And last was me.
It hurt it was painful because I knew I was good
even my own teammates didn’t understand it
I asked God why can’t I play dammit?
I remained positive but I spent many nights with tears.
I cried out to God, for four freakin years.
You see
My dream
Was to be
A professional athlete
And my reality
Made it hard to see.
My mom said pray
it will happen God’s way,
But I prayed for four years
And no change came
How can I be a professional, when I can’t even get in the game?

And finally, I was getting ready to graduate
I was real sad
four years had passed
and I knew now it was too late.
Who would pay me
to play professionally,
I didn’t even have a tape.
After my last college game,
I prayed
I remember my mom telling me if you have the will, God will make a way.
I only played 7 minutes that night
the last game of the season
for some reason
I just didn’t give up the fight.
I believed
even when my reality
showed me
that it was hopeless.
And people were asking me, what are you going to do now, you got to get a real job, but I didn’t listen to them because I didn’t want to lose focus.
You see, the devil is a liar, and I know this.
And one night I was talking to a friend
my teammate
she’s Russian
She told me her old coach in Russia coaches professionally
he is looking for a 3, 4, who can run the floor
before she could even finish, I said, shoot, that’s me.
God gave me a contact
a month later I had a contract.
I went from being on the bench
to playing with and against
Olympians and WNBA players.
Why, because I stayed focus on God and didn’t listen to these haters.
So I stand before you today,
knowing that God can and will make a way.
This testimony is very special to me

Because if it was not for God I wouldn’t be playing professionally.

THANK-YOU

Santia Jackson

Updated: Video Included

Work is power
Power is commitment
Commitment means struggle
Struggle means progress
Progress means persistance
Persistance is to love one’s goal
A goal is the dream
The dream is the fate
The fate is the journey
The journey is god given
God gives the ability
The ability to make it
The ability to pursue
The ability to know its coming
Then to know its there
Take it and run with it
Then to realize you made it
Then to pass it on
And let that one know
What it takes to be you, what it takes to make it!

- Devin E Davidson

Devin is a guest writer/poet and currently plays semi-pro basketball in California. He has published  a book of poems Poems from the Hood and he has a blog, DeD Product Writes Online

There are some talented writers out there and this you can do anywhere, even when you play overseas!

Good luck!

There are many great stories of basketball players and their lives, their success, their motivation and greatness. A new website A Players Life, gives the inside depth of basketball players around the world and what makes them very special.

These basketball photos and basketball stories are very inspirational to read. Take a look at APlayersLife.com and you can even submit your own story!

I should have listened
When
You were teaching me
But I felt like
My prior basketball experience was more potent
Than your century
And can you guess
What I learned to define as success
It was baskets
Win or lose I had to be the best
Lost in a world where identity claims player performance
Ignored all warnings
Judged only by game nights
And the loses caused no confusion because I did everything right
My points my rebounds I am bigger than this team
When the game is over I look at my statistics
Say F*** it
If I would have just got the ball more we could have won this shit
Coach needs to be fired teammates need to be replaced
No I don´t want to do
an interview
Can you get the camera out of my face
I was the cancer infecting the entire organization
And only on one occasion
Did I begin to see
That it was not the team,
It was ME.

Author Anonymous

Love of my life where have you taken me?
Foreign faces and places and languages a like
Love of my life why have you forsaken me?
For no matter what I do it does not seem right
This life, a game, I pretend to play
But when odds are 2 and 4 instead of 1 and 3
I think the game is playing me
I have cheated to get here but not cheated enough
The odds are odder than this
The higher you go up
The more you fight to exist
The more existence fights you
For the game
Will always remain
Long after you are through
The nights are rare
Where you can swear
That you were the master
Everything you shot went in
Follow through or no follow through
You were 10 for 10
You vowed that you can play this way again
But never again did you play the same
And although you played to win
You got played by the game.

Author Anonymous