Finalist: “My Story” by Ray Velazquez
Ray Velazquez of The St. Thomas More School (CT)
I’ve had many failures in my 19 years of being alive, but there is one specific failure that completely changed my life for the better. Being a kid from Lowell you don’t really grow up with too much. I was fortunate enough to have a family that could provide for me in any way that I needed at the time. But my sophomore year of high school my life drastically changed in a good and bad way. My parents separated just for the mental health of my brothers and that’s when things started to get hard for me. Moving from house to house between my parents took a huge mental toll on me. I was at the lowest of my lows. I started to act differently at school and went from being every teacher's best friend to not being able to speak to them. My grades suddenly started to drop and people were noticing, I let my pride slip and that was the biggest
mistake I’ve made.
A ton of people like to think that if you’re born in Lowell you will most likely not be a successful human being, and at that moment I completely understood why. At the same time I was doing really well in baseball as a young guy on varsity and travel baseball. I started getting noticed by schools. A few weeks after all this happened I got a phone call from my high school baseball Coach and he gave me the most shocking news I’ve ever heard in my life. One of the greatest Coaches to ever step on the baseball field was looking to talk to me from Vanderbilt University. He rang my phone and after that phone call I knew things had to change, quick. I believe my biggest failure is also my biggest lesson and it is what represents me today. The reason I say that is because the reason why I get up and do what I do everyday is because of that mistake. I never thought my biggest failure would also end up being my biggest blessing in disguise.
After that moment, I promised myself I will never let my pride slip ever again. I became a different person, it almost felt like I was reborn as a new man. My grades quickly went back up and realized I NEEDED to leave Lowell, Massachusetts. I talked to both my parents and all my Coaches about boarding at a prep school. They were all for it. They knew my home life wasn’t the same as it used to be so they thought that was the best option for me. I applied to many prep schools and the one that stood out the most was St. Thomas More. STM stood out because they were such a blue collar school. One thing I learned from here is discipline. Being able to have discipline is one of the greatest traits to have as a human being.