Basketball is one of my favorite sports.  Especially college basketball.  I believe that college basketball is way more exciting than professional basketball.  It’s pure.  When a team wins in college basketball you can see the genuine excitement in each and every players face, not like in the NBA where every player is getting a check so no one really cares about winning and losing.

Nowadays, when I think about college basketball I’m truly thinking about my homeboy Gio.  He’s been to a couple of schools now with his goal being to play division 1 basketball for a major college and after that hopefully playing professionally, whether it be in the NBA or somewhere overseas.  Currently he is enrolled in Westchester Community College, which is a division 1 junior college.  the competition there should be no challenge because Gio is easily the schools best player this year.  To be honest, he is probably going to lead the team in every statistical category.

Gio isn’t just a basketball player I know.  I consider him part of my family, like my brother.  I’ve seen him go through allot, but on the basketball court is where he takes out most of his frustration.  We are both from the Bronx, so the neighborhoods we grew up in weren’t the greatest.  Basketball was an outlet for him to stay out of trouble.  Where we are from, it’s very difficult to focus on positive situations, since we are always surrounded by negative.  Gio found a way to put all the negative aside and concentrate on achieving his goals.  He may be younger than me in age, but I am not ashamed to say that he is one of my role models today.

Sometimes  wonder though, is he going to make it?  Is all the hard work that Gio has put in, will it really pay off?   Sometimes I feel like the way society is set up, a kid like Gio isn’t suppose to make it anywhere.  You know what they say in the hood, ” either you slang cr*ck rock, or you got a wicked jump shot”, and believe me, the kids jump shot never misses.  I worry sometimes because young kids who are good at any sport get exploited by many different people who promise them many different things.

Will he make it? that’s a great question that I myself do not even have the answer to.