When I was five years old, my dad signed me up to play baseball for the Helotes Little League. I was extremely excited to play sports, especially baseball. The night before my first tee ball game, my dad took me to Henry T. Brauchle Elementary, where I attended school. He pointed at a few bright lights across the highway and said,
“Look over at those lights!
That’s where you will be playing your first game tomorrow night.”
I remember that spring night like it was yesterday. From then on, I knew one thing,
when I grew up I was going to play professional baseball!
I was extremely talented
in baseball and had played on many All-Star teams throughout my youth.
By the time I started high school, I had already developed some unhealthy behaviors.
Substances had become more important to me than baseball.
I had the abilities and skills to go pro, however,
wanting to fit in and be accepted was more important to me at this time.
If only I knew then where the path I was following would take me.
From age 18 to 30, I had completely stepped away from baseball. My life consisted of
numerous trips to jail and an attempted suicide
when I was 23.
Then something changed.
To this day, I still don’t know or really remember why I walked into the blue portable building off Ironside Drive, but I now know my Higher Power had something to do with it.
At 30 years old, wondering how my life was in such unimaginable chaos, I had no idea how
walking through those doors at 10226 Ironside was going to dramatically change my life.
