No Ordinary Rookie

Twelve [12] year old, "J. Hawk", is no ordinary rookie. When I say rookie, I don’t just

mean a rookie for the Southwest Little Rock Saints – Hawkins is a rookie to the sport football.

That’s right. This is Hawkins first year, first time, ever playing the game of football.

Hawkins came in and quickly impressed the coaches with his athletic capability. While this is

only the beginning for him, he’s already showing signs of being a great athlete.

During week fours Tuesday warmups, the seniors (the 11 and 12 year olds), had to show the

other players how to do jumping jacks synchronized. Coach Damien pointed out that Hawkins is such a rookie, that he didn’t even know how to do a proper jumping jack. But as

expected of him because of his self-determination, he caught on so quickly, that I didn’t even notice that he couldn’t do a jumping jack to begin with.

Observing Hawkins since he’s first joined us, he’s going to be an all-around, high performing

athlete. Not only does he have the athleticism, but he has the personality traits as well. These traits include:

1. Inner desire to succeed

2. Willingness to take criticism

3. Humility

4. Trust in the process

5. Resiliency

6. Strong sense of motivation

After numerous times of missing catches, he said, “Coach, put me back at the front of the line. I’m gonna catch the ball this time.” The coach let him skip back to the front of the line, coach threw the pass, and Hawkins caught it just like he said he would.

** The clip at the end of the interview video, is the pass he said he would catch.

There’s no doubt that Hawkins has the inner desire to succeed. It’s also safe to say that he’s a

natural goal-setter as he challenged himself by requesting to be put back at the front of the line saying he would catch the ball.

I’m personally looking forward to seeing the athlete Hawkins develops into as well as the young man he grows to be.

xo, Coach P.