For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the golden child in my family. I’ve had the grades, the ambition and the witty personality to match. When asked what I wanted to be, my response was...
https://therideronline.com/stories/2024/04/growing-up-gifted-and-talented/
I walked into my first-grade classroom, sat in my assigned seat and began the warm-up that Monday morning. At the beginning of each week, my teacher, Mrs. Watson, would give us a worksheet, askin...
https://therideronline.com/stories/2024/03/living-a-split-life/
In the fifth grade, I stepped into a large rectangular room filled to the brim with various instruments ranging in size from a small notebook to over 6 feet tall. I had been insanely fascinated b...
https://therideronline.com/stories/2024/02/lessons-in-life-from-the-orchestra-room/
When I was around 11 or 12 I was sitting in my dad’s truck with him, my mom, my brother and me. We had the radio turned to KSHE 95, the classic rock station for St. Louis. I remember a specific...
https://therideronline.com/stories/2024/02/just-listen-to-the-music-play/
“You’re supposed to be the smart one.” My parents’ favorite phrase when I make a mistake. My biggest fear–failure. I am so scared to fail because my entire life I’ve been expected to ...
https://therideronline.com/stories/2024/02/resolving-to-fail/
When I was 13 years old, my dad asked me what I thought about racing cars. I didn’t know too much about cars, and I didn’t know what that entailed. I agreed to it not knowing how it would cha...
https://therideronline.com/stories/2024/02/racing-through-high-school/
It’s hard to make it to major league baseball. Really hard. Before 2019, there were 40 rounds in the draft with four different levels in the minor leagues before you make it to the majors. Some...
https://therideronline.com/stories/2024/01/you-can-push-through/
I sat in the psychiatrist’s office across from my parents, bouncing my knee and biting my fingernails out of nervous habit. Finally, the doctor enters carrying thick paper packets. She hands on...
https://therideronline.com/stories/2024/01/growing-up-undiagnosed/
The United States of America is in the middle of an educational crisis. Test scores are plummetting, school funding is becoming unattainable and students are graduating from 12 years of public sc...
https://therideronline.com/stories/2023/12/the-usa-is-in-the-middle-of-an-educational-crisis/
August 2018, a short, fat kid showed up to seventh-grade football practice with no idea what he was getting into. He was the first one to the school in the morning, but somehow the last one on th...
https://therideronline.com/stories/2023/11/bronco-nation-now-what/