A blog from Julio! Player # 1

My name is Julio Sabido and I am from Belize and live in a small town named Benque Viejo del Carmen. Basketball means a lot to me. It is my favorite sport and it all started with my friend who told me to go with him for school tryouts. When I first arrived I saw people having fun and I said to myself, if they are having fun playing basketball why shouldn’t I? I started playing basketball from that day and have loved it ever since. Since that day, basketball is always on my mind. As every athlete goes, I have been through good and bad moments. Bad moments I call when I lose a game but whenever I lose a game I just put my head up because in my town, there are always a lot of people trying to get your esteem down. Good moments I call when I get to play with my teammates and best friends who are like my brothers. We have grown up since we were small together.

I play basketball with my high school team and two other teams from town for town tournaments. From town, I play with an under 16 team and a senior team. My high school team is the team which I love the playing with the most though because as I mentioned, we have grown up together since we were little and truly play as a team. We know our roles and where each other are at all times, and because of this, we have become a great team together. My high school teammates are amazing and I love playing with them. We consider each other family and have been through good and bad times together, but every day we go to the court we try to improve our work. This year we reached to Regionals and I am so proud of my teammates because even though we lost in the Regional Championship game, everyone was proud of us: our school, our coaches, and everyone from town, even coaches from other teams in Belize. It was the first time our school made it to Regionals in ten years. My high school coach Miss Lucia has taught me to grow as a young man with respect and every day that passes, I just give thanks to the Lord that he put her on my life.

It would mean a lot to me if we could go to the two basketball camps in Colorado. I could learn more about the game and would eventually want to teach the youths in my town of Benque how to play the game from the skills we could learn. The trip would impact me a lot because I have never been to the States but to go there for basketball camps would be a great achievement for me. For my future, it would help because I could tell the youths that with hard work, your goals can be achieved. I would like to leave you with a quote from one of my basketball idols: "Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” Thank you and God bless.

(From me)

Julio brings so much heart to the team. He is always there when anyone needs him and organizes the team to play in many of the tournaments. Whenever we need to gather or play, I just let him know and he lets the whole team know within minutes. He is a very reliable young man and his love for the sport is incredible. There isn’t a day that goes by that he’s not telling me about how every team in the NBA is doing but more importantly, how the Nuggets are doing in comparison to the Lakers. He’s a huge Lakers fan but I’d like to think he thinks the Nuggets will do great this year because he tells me “miss, did you see the nuggets won?” then follows with “the Lakers aren’t doing so well..., we still have our bet right?” Both teams are now in the playoffs so our best still stands! haha. Please support Julio!