FRO12 LC12

When most people write about leadership experiences, they usually talk about a trip they went on, a revelation they had, or some situation forced upon them which they had no control over. My first real tackle at leadership came at a very different standpoint. Let’s take it from the top. I love basketball. I love the sport of it, the technicalities and slight nuances to the gameplay and the way it’s played, the entertainment and excitement to it, I’m in love with it. Naturally, I’m also in love with it’s professional affiliate, the NBA. I watch games, read articles pertaining those games, and talk about it on a daily basis. Most specifically, I play fantasy basketball, a stat minded creative way to follow the NBA through ten team picked by ten real people in your “fantasy league.” Enter the beginning my senior year in high school. The year before I won my fantasy league. It was a small league of just eight mostly ignorant casual basketball fans. This year, I wanted things to be different. I needed things to be different. I was a hardcore basketball fan, and I needed a full, hardcore, fantasy basketball league. So, as the season neared, I started scouting. I had to have a tight-knit, smart, charismatic, reliable and knowledgable group of people to create a stable, ten-team fantasy basketball league. I didn’t just want a good, fun, league. I needed to have the best league I’ve ever heard of. So the search began. I crossed people off, added others on and crossed them off again, and slowly but surely found  a bunch of guys that were definitely up for my task. Some of them were my friends, some of them I barely spoke to. But I confidently thought I had it. I put together a really good league,something admirable, especially because I started from scratch. The fantasy draft to begin the season was a few days before the actual season began. From then I knew I did something right. Everyone was enjoying themselves, strategizing, sweating out some picks, laughing at others, and everyone finished the night with satisfaction. Yes, this was definitely gonna be great. From that night, the Jacob Betesh League was born, or JBL for short. “I did it”, I thought that night, I knew I did it all myself, I created this league because I really wanted to and set myself to it. I told people what I wanted, they liked the sound of it and they agreed to join the JBL. We ended up had a really successful season. Everyone loved the way I ran the league. Everyone was involved, and we always talked about it. We talked smack to each other in hallways, asked for trades in the middle of classes, I was surprised my creation was such a success. By season’s end, I was extremely proud of myself. I loved it, and now this year the JBL is back together, as strong as before. Yes, I view that as a great case for leadership, a result of hard work