Basketball has been my passion for a very long time. While growing up, whenever I got a chance during my free time, I would go to the basketball courts by my house or to a gym where I could start my workouts. Everyone has the one idol that they want to be like when they grow up, or someone whose game time moves they can imitate. My idol is Kobe Bryant, aka "The Black Mamba."

As I got older, I began to watch a lot of Kobe's workout videos, watching how he plays during the game and how he separates himself from everyone else in the NBA in order to achieve greatness. Kobe is one of the greatest basketball players of all time. How he got to where he is now was by striving for perfection and doing what everyone else was not willing to do, whether that was waking up early in the morning to get his workouts in, being the first one at practice, or being the last person to leave the gym.

Throughout my life, I have been overlooked by many people and coaches. Whenever I worked 100 percent in the gym, the ones who went only 90 percent were still put up on a pedestal and were taken over me. Unfortunately, still to this day, I still have that same feeling and go through that same struggle all the time. At some points of my life, there has been times when I want to give up, times when I just want to put a stop to the game I love because nothing is coming out of it.

Kobe once said "The moment you give up is the moment you let someone else win." I have never stopped working hard to become great; I have sacrificed things in order to get closer to my dream. In some cases, people won't understand why I spend so much time in the gym or why I get frustrated with the phrase "good enough." Just like how Kobe never gave up on his dream and did everything and anything to achieve greatness and perfection, that is what I am striving for every single day. Every day, when I wake up, I realize that today is a new day to become great and to work harder than I did yesterday.

At the end of the day, Kobe Bryant will be known as our generation's Michael Jordan and one of the best to ever play the game of basketball. As for me, the passion for the game is what drives me to want to be great, just like Kobe.