An athlete is a person who loves to compete, loves a challenge and works hard to reach their goals. I have been playing sports since I was four years old. My first sport was soccer and then I played t-ball. It wasn’t until my 5th grade year that I started to play basketball and cross country. Both of my parents were athletic when they were my age, my mother played softball and almost went to college for it, and my dad played basketball. When I started playing sports, I loved it. Later on, I found out that my parents just signed me up because I had too much energy for their liking. Who would’ve known I was going to be addicted? Being an athlete has its ups and downs. Anybody can join the group of athletes, but not all can actually keep up. I think in order to enjoy playing sports you need to be competitive and ready to work hard. You should be able to accept failing at things that are tough and coming back and working hard to get back on your feet. Being a part of this group to me, is being able to work with others when they might be pushing your buttons, pushing through rough times, motivating yourself to get your school work done and making time to study. As an athlete, I have had my struggles like being injured for a long period of time. I’ve learned to be grateful for what I have and that anything can just be taken away from you. On the positive side, I have met a lot of my good friends through sports. You have to make friends in sports, because if you don’t then you will then have enemies and nobody likes to play against other players that they don’t like. Many people think that athletes get special treatments. I do think that certain players do get special treatment, I think its different in each level of sports. In high school you always have you all-star players that the teachers love, or don’t care too much about. I will say that some teachers that enjoy sports, they will give athletes some leeway in school work