The Advice From a Role Model. - -Joe Jensen , 10th grade

The sky was filled with clear orange and red clouds as the sun was just about to set. I’m alone tonight, for once, but I feel that it’s good to have a little bit of down time for myself to think. I’ve been sitting on top of this hill, waiting for the sky to turn dark so the stars and the full moon can come out. I sat there, just thinking about my future. My name is Dave Ostrander and I’m a senior at my high school. I get good grades I guess. I’m in honors classes and I get on the A honor roll every year. But I still think school is boring. My favorite thing to do is play baseball and I’m pretty sure that’s what I want to be. I’m pretty good too. I had scouts come in for me from all across the state to watch me pitch and hit and they gave me a scholarship to the University of California, a division I college. But I really want to think of what I really am. I don’t even know. My dad gave me two options: To take his offer at Yale University, which help me would pay for. The other option is for my father to not help me pay for a different college and I could go to University of California for baseball... And I had the whole day to think about it, starting tomorrow.
Baseball lives in me; it’s my love and passion. During the summer, there was a time when the only thing I ever wanted to do was play baseball. Almost every day a few friends and I would walk down to the park and play ball for hours on end. Normally we would go play right after lunch and stop playing when it gets dark out. I never got tired of it and neither did my friends. Baseball is the best thing man has ever invented.
“So today’s the big day”, my dad said. I replied “Yea, I’m still not completely sure about what I want, though”, I said. For the past couple of months, I’ve been lying to my dad saying that I’m going to go to Yale University instead of playing baseball in college. If I do decide to go to the University of California, it’s going to be tough to break the news. Its 3:30 and I have until 5 to decide on my future. I had a little bit of trouble on deciding, so I called up one of my best friend’s older brother, who just finished four years of college and is going into the MLB draft. I asked him for advice about what I should do and he gave me the best advice that I have ever gotten from anybody. He told me to do what I feel is best for me and not what’s best for others. Right when he said that, I thought about how much the team really does need me. I’m going to play baseball and I’m really sure about it.
Breaking the news to my dad was tough. It really pissed him off. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen him this mad. He was so mad that he kicked me out of the house and told me to live somewhere else until college. But I didn’t care. I knew that I was going to play baseball and I know my dad will regret all the bad things he said about my decision once he sees me in the majors in a few years. So in the end, all I needed was some words of advice and more importantly I needed a role model, my friend’s older brother.