Max Grady
Jr. Faith
Mr. Sciuto
Personal Moral Story
11/24/04

“If at first you don’t succeed...”


“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again...”, we have all heard that phrase or something similar to it at one point in our lives or another. I have never really thought much of it until now. I have seen this becoming evident in my life at SLUH recently, particularly with water polo. I think water polo is one of the greatest sports, and I love playing it very much. Yet, I am not the best water polo player, but I contribute my share to the team. Ever since tryouts of freshmen year, I have heard things from my coach such as “ ...we both know you may not have that much playing time... I want you to put forth your best efforts when you are in the water..” I have heard these sorts of talks continually throughout my years playing water polo at SLUH. I have talked with my coach, Mr. Baudendistel, a few times about the amount of work I put into playing water polo verses the the actual playing time I get and whether or not it is worth all of the time and effort and late practices.

Well after freshmen year there were tryouts for Sophomore year, and I heard a few of the same lines about playing time, yet I chose to stay with water polo and I made the team. We had a great season and I learned a lot throughout it , more notably becoming better friends with many of the other players. After the season ended I talked a lot with coach Baud about moving up to varsity next season. Of course due to pool time constraints and the like you only have two year on jv water polo, so as a junior trying out for varsity would be pretty tough. Again there were decisions to be made, whether or not I wanted to put the effort forward to play a varsity sport even though I wouldn’t be a big contributor to the games. again I chose to try out and I in fact made the team.

As I look back on it now, I have put forward tremendous effort to keep playing a sport I love, training for it year round with swimming in winter and playing on club team during the spring and summer, plus swimming for a summer league team during the summer also. But what I have gotten out of the experience has meant more to me than all of the long practices and weight lifting sessions. I think overall it has been a greta learning experience, knowing that persistence pays off. I have become much better friends with a lot of people in my class from the team and also upper and lower class men as well.

Even though I haven’t been the greatest player I have definitely improved and an very happy that I stuck with the game. My coach has told me that he could see me being a coach later in life because he thinks I have good leadership skills and can relate to the younger payers well. Knowing this has given me a more positive outlook on the effort I put into playing, it makes me feel like all the work has really accomplished something more than just being able to say I still play water polo, which is almost good enough for me anyway.