This article is a about a young college graduate who has rewon his passion for basketball and even exceed the odds and became a coach for the juniors.
“In high school I broke my knee, my career as an athelete was literally over so, a plan B had to be conceived. My plan was to finish my studies and go to college and that’s exactly what I did,” says Baki Szilard, junior coach.
Basketball is not an easy sport because it includes highly physical contact which causes most of the time severe injuries like in this case.
“One day when I was still in college I got a special phone call from my former coach, at first I thought he wanted to say hello and to see how my life is going overall after my injury, because we weren’t just a team, we were a family.’’
He was really surprised when he heard that the coach actually called him to make him an offer that changed his life.
“College was great and I am gratefull for what I’ve learned along the way, but how could I say no to my first love? I think no one in my position would have been capable of refusing such an offer.’’
Another step was going through coaching school which really paid off.
Now he had a bunch of young souls which had to learn directly from him about how to play the fine game and how to develop themselves as individuals.
“It was hard because they were scared. I was scared at first. But everytime I had any doubts, memories resurfaced my mind to remind me that what is more valuable than a team is a family and from that moment I knew that I had to sustain and give life to a big family.’’
In this case it helped because as for the most sports, basketball consists in numerous sessions and continuously training, various training camps, lots of matches and consistent spirit and morale building.
“My main mission is to protect my family and to be able to do that I must ensure that my guidings show honesty, teamwork and character because I feel like I am responsible at this point for molding an entire generation.’’ (Baki Szilard, junior coach)
Everything went accordingly to his plan untill the COVID-19 outbreak struck and everyone was devastated.
“At first I was schocked because for some of the kids, the training sessions were everything, imagine being a little kid and being told you cannot see your friends or in this case our family but I called each and every one of them to give them my support and faith and to clarify that we will get back to normal.’’ (Baki Szilard, junior coach)
They started to train again under special conditions but everybody was glad that they’ve managed to see each other after so much time.
“Teamwork is something but family, that’s a bond no one could ever be able to break in this life.’’
These are the words of a future coach who will definetly manage to develop fine young athletes and fine characters.
