{"id":8567,"date":"2020-02-24T12:15:31","date_gmt":"2020-02-24T18:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/?p=8567"},"modified":"2020-02-26T12:02:13","modified_gmt":"2020-02-26T18:02:13","slug":"bounce-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/?p=8567","title":{"rendered":"Bounce Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to the U.S. News and World Report, 80% of Americans fail to follow through with their New Year\u2019s resolutions. However, one student is completely undaunted by this statistic.<\/span><\/p>\n

Junior Kyrilos Sadaka committed to a resolution to improve his basketball abilities for the church league season at the beginning of this year and is showing no signs of quitting. Sadaka believes that he will be able to maintain the discipline that his resolution requires.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not worried that I\u2019ll fail to follow through because I have a lot of friends that are supporting me,\u201d said Sadaka. \u201cMy teammates are helping me a lot with practicing basketball, the coaches are scheduling a bunch of practices, and a couple of friends are helping me get stronger in the gym.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

His goal is to score over 130 points over the course of the season, as well as getting stronger and more fit. \u201cI was thinking that it should be pretty easy to score 130 points in ten games,\u201d said Sadaka. \u201cThat\u2019s only 13 points per game, and so far I\u2019m getting close to that, even though it\u2019s still the beginning of the season.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One of his teammates, junior Evan Ramey, has noticed a steady improvement in Sadaka\u2019s play throughout the season. \u201cHe scored the first points of the season, which was kind of surprising, but since then he\u2019s become a much more reliable player,\u201d he said. \u201cI know church league isn\u2019t good basketball, but it gets pretty competitive, and Sadaka is able to do pretty well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Obviously, this improvement didn\u2019t occur overnight; his development is a product of discipline and hard work on the court and in the gym. \u201cI try to get as many shots up as I can after school every day,\u201d said Sadaka, \u201cAnd I do my best to work on ball handling and passing whenever I can.\u201d In addition to his solo training sessions, Sadaka\u2019s team has scheduled practices twice a week, and he attends those practices consistently. \u201cIt\u2019s a little bit extreme, but we practice at 9:30 p.m. every Monday and Wednesday,\u201d said Ramey. \u201cI respect the fact that he shows up to almost all of the practices, even when he has schoolwork or other things to do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A huge role model for Sadaka was the great Kobe Bryant. \u201cHis [Bryant\u2019s] work ethic has really inspired me,\u201d he said. \u201cI have a pair of Kobe shoes that I play in, and for a while, I called myself the \u2018Brown Mamba.\u2019 It\u2019s tragic that such an icon has passed but he inspired and motivated so many people, including me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sadaka\u2019s success also stems from his hard work in the gym, with his workout partner, junior Brooks O\u2019Shea. \u201cI\u2019m trying to help Sadaka get stronger, and he\u2019s doing really well,\u201d said O\u2019Shea. \u201cWe usually wake up at about 4:30 a.m. to lift before school, and try to stay there as long as we can without being late for class.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sadaka has progressed in the gym a lot because of others who have helped him along the way.\u201cBrooks [O\u2019Shea] and some GNC worker taught me which creatine and pre workout to use, and I think those are really helping me with my workouts,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen Church League is over, I\u2019m definitely going to keep working out like I am right now. Who knows, maybe after a while I\u2019ll be able to compete with him.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

O\u2019Shea is skeptical about Sadaka\u2019s thoughts of surpassing him, but appreciates Sadaka\u2019s commitment. \u201cI\u2019m not really sure why, but he has a membership at like four different gyms in Little Rock,\u201d said O\u2019Shea, \u201cand he goes to all of them during the week. I have no idea where he gets all that energy and motivation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sadaka\u2019s motivation also came with the realization that his resolution can spread to other aspects of his life, not just Church League basketball. \u201cHonestly, I believe that if I can reach this goal, and get better at something that I was bad at, it could be the same way for other things in life,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I can go from playing basketball as a joke to scoring 130 points in a season, I feel like I can reach any other goal I set for myself.\u201d\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

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According to the U.S. News and World Report, 80% of Americans fail to follow through with their New Year\u2019s resolutions. However, one student is completely undaunted by this statistic. Junior Kyrilos Sadaka committed to a resolution to improve his basketball abilities for the church league season at the beginning of this year and is showing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":8568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[196],"tags":[143],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/liftoffnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Image-2.jpg?fit=1874%2C2500&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3xfZw-2eb","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8567"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8567"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8573,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8567\/revisions\/8573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}