Houston, Texas Feb 28, 2020 (Issuewire.com) - Hi. My name is Charles Russell Leone IV and I am excited to share my story.
Ever since I was a little kid, I liked to be active. However, when I say that, I don’t only mean active as in playing sports. Although, sports were a huge part of my childhood and teen years, and they still make up a huge part of my life. Besides being physically active, I’ve always enjoyed being a part of different organizations. I’m a very social person who likes to have fun and make new friends. All of my hobbies gave me the opportunity to meet new people. Although there were folks from all different backgrounds, most of them were my age and they shared my interests and passions.
Early Life
I grew up in San Antonio, Texas. My parents are huge believers so we attended church every Sunday. Religion and faith are something that became a part of my life from the earliest age. Even though my mom and dad both had jobs, we made it a tradition to have dinner together every day
My parents, my sister Christiana and I would sit at the table and say a prayer. Then we would eat our meal and spend some time together watching TV afterwards. Mom and dad always gave Christiana and me chores to do. They were simple chores like taking out the trash or walking the dog. They would pay us a couple of dollars a week, and we were happy to earn them. Then we’d go out and spend that money on ice-cream.
I would say I had a pretty amazing childhood.
Teen Life at Holy Trinity Catholic Church
As I said, religion was always a huge part of my life. When I was in 9th grade, I decided to join Teen Life at Holy Trinity Catholic Church. Every Sunday evening, we would get together to celebrate Mass. After Mass, all of us would gather to talk and say prayers. We would form smaller groups and discuss all kinds of things related to religion. Through those conversations, I found a lot of friends who had the same ideals as I had.
I met one of my best friends there. When I met him, his smile seemed like it was hiding something deeper. When he saw he couldn’t keep it in anymore, he told me he was depressed. It took a lot of time for him to open up to me, and we shared stories about our lives. He was feeling particularly down one day. So, I sat next to him and told him the following: “God promises to make something good out of the storms that bring devastation to your life.” He started to cry. I hugged him and promised that he will always have a friend in me. We decided to make a pledge to one another. I, Charles Russell Leone IV, swear I will always be by my friend’s side, no matter what. He made the same pledge. The pledge was so childish, yet so grown-up at the same time.
Neighborhood Swim Team
That year, my friend and I joined the neighborhood swim team together, who lived just a couple of blocks away from me so we could see each other all the time. I loved to swim and I still do it whenever I get the chance. With swimming, I started to get more competitive. It was exciting for me to push my limits, trying harder and harder each time I hit the pool. But after some time, I took an interested in the volunteering work, as I wanted to help new swimmers have a great experience just like I did.
These teams generally tend to rely on volunteers and supporters to run effectively. It takes a lot of will and care to establish a successful team where both swimmers, as well as their families, can have a fun ad positive experience. These positions rarely require any experience, so I thought it would be ideal to do some good work while learning new things, especially when it comes to event coordination, roles and duties in administration and organizing swim meets.
Volunteer work here offers a couple of opportunities like the chance to be appointed as an official or a referee by the supervisory staff if you have a season’s worth of experience. There are also many required positions some of which are Course Clerks, that prepare cards of meetings and notify the swimmers, Lineup Aides who line up swimmers for every event, Result Reporters, Data Persons, Runners, Scorers and so on. When the summer ended, however, the swimming team was disbanded
Small-Sided Soccer
It was early autumn when small sided soccer piqued my interest. If you are not familiar with it, it’s basically soccer with fewer players. We play 3-on-3 or 5-on-5. I liked it because everybody got more opportunity to kick the ball. I was already in good physical shape from swimming, so I wanted to keep the momentum. My friends from church and I started a team and played every Saturday afternoon against other teams. It was fun, and a way to blow off steam. Being a part of a team was not always easy. We had our quarrels, of course. But we pushed through our disagreements every time and strived to improve our game. When we hit the field, we were in the zone. In a short time, we became one of the best local small sided soccer teams in San Antonio.
Club Soccer – Classics Elite
One thing leads to another and I joined Classics Elite Soccer Academy in my city. They are the largest youth soccer club in San Antonio. The best one, too. My experience with small sided soccer allowed me to improve quickly. I was playing in the position of a left-winger in no time. Our team had a great season and I even won an award. My mom still keeps the plaque I got on the shelf in our living room. Charles Russell Leone IV – Most Assists in One Game. I was so proud, my family was so proud, my friends, even our neighbors. That evening, mom prepared dinner so delicious I still remember it to this day. It was one of my most memorable recognitions in sports.
I continued playing for the team for the remainder of the season. And, boy, it was a great one!
LETS TWEET:- Charles Russell Leone IV
Running Track
Most of my sports-related hobbies stem from my love of running. I took up running when I was a student, after realizing that I was getting a bit lazy after long hours of TV, I wanted to make a drastic change. One morning I decided to get up early go for a run and was amazed by the experience and by how much of a difference your will can make. Getting up at 6 am and going for a run became a cherished habit of mine and one that sparked my interested in other physical activities.
First run wasn’t that great, I didn’t even manage to run a full kilometer. Through many persistent mornings, my distance started to improve and I found out that I prefer running track to trail running, as it was more reliable and organized, and that’s how another passion was born.
Brown University Summer Program & More
Before I knew it, it was time to prepare for the next step in my life. Just before I embarked on the rest of my academic journey and enrolled in college, I joined the Brown University Summer Program. Brown University offers its students many different programs so it wasn’t that easy to choose one. I always liked science the most so, naturally, I went with the program that focuses on Liberal Arts and Sciences.
It was a great way to fulfill some of my aspirations and choose to attend the courses I liked the most. I was at the program for 4 weeks and I made the decision to attend several classes. I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t easy keeping up with the program. Since there were many fun things such as workshops, taking more than one class proved not to be such a good idea. However, I did great in all my classes in the end. Thank God. It took a lot of sleepless nights in the library, missing out on some parties, and a lot of perseverance to make it through.
I was lucky enough to meet a lot of people there who shared my interests. We all wanted to do good. For this reason, we were able to organize study groups and help each other out. It’s great seeing your peers work hard to meet their goals. And what’s even better is doing it with them.
We didn’t spend all of our time studying, don’t get me wrong. We still had the time to goof around on campus and have fun with each other. But this experience was certainly eye-opening as to how hard you need to work to make things happen. In the end, I opted out of Brown and got into Blinn college where I majored in economics.
By this point, you’ve probably gathered I don’t like to sit still for a very long time.
My next adventure was applying to the US Parachute Association to become a licensed skydiver. But that’s a story for another time.
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Stay tuned, folks.
Media Contact
Charles Russell Leone Iv *****@gmail.com http://charlesrussellleoneiv.com/
