Florent Quilici

Despite a journey fraught with pitfalls and setbacks, I have never given up to achieve my dream. I had to believe in things they said that it was impossible for me to do.So I did the "impossible": I left my sweet home and my family to play basketball at a higher level.Graduated from a little private french high school in science with an emphasis in math while playing basketball at a national level and pre-national. Then I decided to leave my country, to go even further in my ambitions.Then I found Impact Basketball: an American academic basketball prep school in order to get recruited by a NCAA basketball coach. But in January 2015 I torn my ACL’s right knee. That was the greatest birthday gift Life ever gave me.Some people still look at it as a tragedy, but for me it has been an opportunity. An opportunity to test my will, my mental strength to overcome all the pain that the injury gave me. Who allowed me to grow spiritually, and physically too.The difference between a good player and a great player is their work ethic and their instincts, and most of the time this ability to work comes to the people who have a difficult background. Either they make it or they live the rest of their lives struggling. So they don’t have the choice. What makes me special is that I had the choice to give up multiple times and stay in my little unknown town and live a simple life, but I wanted more. I always did and I always will.I learned that nothing is given, everything is earned, the pain of hard work and the joy of the results, I also learned how my body responds to a workout, how to recover better and the most important thing how to fuel it right with healthy foods. Moreover, in January 2016 I will be back at impact basket until April to finish my goal and play NCAA Basketball.