J.T. Barrett (2015)

My dad, I appreciate what he does for my family. I think I am like him in many ways. One way that comes to mind is his quality of being calm. People ask me all the time, “When I see you on TV, why don’t you ever look excited?” I really don’t have an answer for them because that’s just the way am. I feel like I got that quality from my dad. I honestly believe that my dad doesn’t have bad days. What I mean by that is often times we as people think negatively and then that consumes us and that negative way of thinking goes throughout our daily activities, but not my dad.  My dad is constantly smiling and always talking. I try to have that same mentality about life.

Going back to childhood memories, I think about my dad and how he was never really a coach in the sports that I played, but he always tried to help me, whether it be talking to me about certain techniques or if he didn’t know he would even go do research about whatever skill. Then he will come back and try to help me at that skill I was trying to improve. But he never forced me to do something like play basketball or football, which made me more willing and more drawn to sports. I feel like if he did force me to play, I wouldn’t have had the same connection.

I always remember even to this day growing up, my dad was away doing his army reserve military duties on the weekends, but sometimes he would take off to come back in town on Saturday to watch me play. I’ll be looking out for him trying to see when he came in or if he was there, and when I found him, he would give me thumbs up which was basically letting me know that everything was okay, and then from there, I’d just relax and play my game. That meant a lot to me playing sports and still does. He is still the one and only person I call right before the team takes the field before games.

I am thankful to have my father in my life because many of my friends cannot say the same. I don’t try to wonder what it would be like if I didn’t have my dad. Only thing I know is that I wouldn’t be the person I am today without him.