Ethan Slagle Mediocrity and Me Final Essay

Ethan Slagle

Professor Oweidat

Final Essay

22 November 2013

Mediocrity and Me

            I started playing baseball when I was only four years old and instantly fell in love with America’s past time. When I got to the kid pitch leagues most of my friends were bragging about how they were on the summer team called the “A Team” which was only for the best players in our township. I however, was not on the A team even though I felt I was just as good as the rest of them. Not only was I not on the A team, but it took me until the age of 12 to be put onto the B team. By the age of fourteen I was spending almost every day training for baseball season, whether it was in-door batting lessons in the winter, or long hours at baseball camps in the summer, I was always putting in as much work as possible. It had been my dream for over a decade now to be on a Varsity baseball team. I felt like I had put in the necessary work, and I thought I deserved to be on the team. The following year I went out for my high school’s baseball team, I worked hard at every single one of the training camps, and gave everything I had at the tryouts. However, when it came time to see who made the team, one of the few names not posted on that horrible sheet of self-esteem crushing paper was Ethan Slagle. This was merely one of many examples of how my mediocrity shaped me to be the person I am today. The truth is, it is all much more complex than it appears. The end product, being me as I am today, is the result of a complicated formula made up of my personal mediocrity, leading to some sort of rejection, and ultimately altering my personality and in the end constructing the person I am in the present.

Athletics

            I already explained that I was unable to make the school baseball team which, at the time, crushed my spirit, but little did I know that there was a silver lining to that rejection. The rejection I received from the baseball team seemed to be horrible because most of my friend group in early high school was on the baseball team so eventually we grew apart, but the hidden silver lining was that it allowed me to find a whole new group of friends that have become one of the most important parts of my life. This new group of people has influenced me immensely, and I would not be remotely close to the same person I am today if it wasn’t for them. They have influenced me in multiple ways, and some have influenced me even more so than others have. For example, a few of my friends named Jake Leya, Zack Leya, and Matt Bauman are in a band that has been quite successful, enough so to release an album for sale and have songs available for sale on Itunes, and they inspired me to start playing guitar. Every show of theirs that I attended continued to increase my desire to better my guitar playing ability. This led me to take countless guitar lessons, and many hours of practice learning new songs and riffs. They also inspired me to create a band of my own which I was in with a few of my other friends named Jake Gallogly, Alex Corbelli, and Seth Langford. The band we formed may not have been the best, but the comradery and friendship we gained through music is something that I will hold close to myself for years to come. Also the creation of this band and the love of music itself led me to write multiple songs, which is a form of self-expression that has become personal therapy for me that can be very helpful in tough situations. Another interest of mine that developed further because of my drastic change in friend groups was art, and more specifically tattoos. The bassist and drummer of our band were Jake Gallogly and Seth Langford, and each of them had multiple tattoos that represented significant events that

were special to them. They, along with my girlfriend at the time named Paige Paskorz, influenced my views of tattooing to the point that I now have three tattoos each representing different parts of my life that are very important me. Also my now ex-girlfriend that I introduced earlier was a big influence on me because of her artistic and creative identity. She helped me expand my knowledge of music, and also made a big enough impact on me to alter my taste in music immensely which is now my most important form of self-expression. Harvey Fierstein once said “Art has the power to transform, to illuminate, to educate, inspire and motivate.” Which is very relevant to my life experiences throughout the years. My mediocre skill at baseball may have led to my rejection from the baseball team and my ultimate separation from my group of friends, but it allowed me to expand my horizons and venture into the vast world of music, art, and self-expression while being surrounded by new and interesting people.

            Baseball is merely one example of how mediocrity led to rejection, which molded my personality. Another example of this is my struggle with basketball. Growing up I was never the biggest kid or the fastest kid on the court, and because of this I was always told to work on my ball handling skills and outside shooting ability. I worked hard at this going to summer camps and spending countless hours outside in my driveway sometimes practicing until one in the morning. Yet despite all of my hard work I was still denied a place on the school basketball team merely because at five foot nine inches I wasn’t tall enough to be on a basketball team. At the time I was devastated, but I now realize just how much my experience with basketball truly helped me. For example, the fact that I was too short to really be an effective basketball player led me to be a more physical and tough player on the court which has carried over into my everyday life. It made me more strong-willed, and also not nearly as much of a push-over as I used to be. Also, because I was somewhat out of my comfort zone on the basketball court seeing as I was a short white kid it helped me leave my comfort zone and take more chances. A great saying from actor Benedict Kumberbatch is “The further you get away from yourself, the more challenging it is. Not to be in your comfort zone is great fun.” Which I find to be one of the truest statements I’ve ever heard because of how leaving my comfort zone has led me to start playing rugby and pick up skateboarding as a hobby. If it hadn’t been for my experience with basketball there would be no chance of me being on the rugby team or taking such a risk as skateboarding, and I am now so thankful for the rejection I received from the basketball and baseball teams.

Academics

            As if it wasn’t enough to just be a disappointment to the people around me in the athletic world, I also managed to be an academic disappointment to my family. Growing up with an older sibling always seemed like a good thing to me because my sister was a mentor and friend to me. It wasn’t until I felt my parents comparing me to her that I realized being the younger sibling may not be the greatest experience a person could have. My sister was always a great student, and a near perfect daughter. She graduated high school with a GPA of 3.9, earned a five on the English AP test, and rarely stepped out of line, so she was never disciplined. I, on the other hand, was a great student through middle school and in my freshman year of high school, where I achieve a GPA of 4.0, but it was in my sophomore year of high school that everything seemed to change. The high school that I attended was extremely intelligent and even with my GPA being around a 3.7 I was still considered to be merely average or of mediocre intelligence when compared to my peers. This fact had a negative effect on my opinion of myself, and when that was combined with my parents’ comparing me to my sister it all seemed to blow up. This also happened to be the same year in which I was rejected from the baseball team, and each of these factors contributed to the start of my acting out. My acting out began with some experimentation with recreational drugs, and partaking in underage drinking multiple times. My parents caught me doing both of these illegal activities, and they went on to ground me multiple times. Little did they know that their groundings would only provoke me more. The experimentation with recreational drugs became a greater part of my life that I almost relied upon, and sneaking out of my house became a regular thing for me. Also worse activities like driving my car without a license and smashing mailboxes became fun events for me. Although, all of these appear to be negative consequences of my mediocre academic performance, it turns out that they were quite the opposite for me. In fact, I attribute my current personality entirely to this experience because my sophomore year of high school was essentially a time of mental evolution for me. In other words it was a time where I underwent a complete metamorphosis.  The person I was in the past was an awkward, shy kid that was focused on grades and basically nothing else, but through my transformation I became a more confident and strong person that had plenty of friends. For example, through the beginning of sophomore year I couldn’t even talk to a girl without becoming completely flustered, but then after going through my own personal metamorphosis I went on to have 4 girlfriends throughout the rest of my high school career. Also freshman year me, never thought that I would attend a dance with a girl in a million years, but it turned out that I ended up attending multiple dances and really breaking out of my shell. In fact, dances were one of my favorite parts of high school because of how much I was able to let loose. Also my mental evolution made me become very sarcastic, and my dry sense of humor led me to become even more outgoing than ever before which is a characteristic that has stayed with me.

            Everything I have talked about from athletics to academics has shaped me in some way to be the person I am today. It is this complicated process of cause and effect that has been present throughout my life, and although many people fear rejection I have grown to embrace it because of the changes that follow. Presently, I am a geological sciences major at Ohio University with high hopes for the future. Music has continued to influence me, and each year the impact it has on my life becomes greater than the previous year. In fact, I am listening to music at this very moment while I type this paper, and it is very rare that there is a moment in my life where I’m not writing, listening, playing, or thinking about music. I also have become more

artistic which includes my interest in “tagging”, which is street spray painting, and I also now have three tattoos and am about to get another one. Each one of my tattoos represents something that is very important to me, including the one that I will be getting next that represents my life as a college student. I also have become somewhat of a comedian for my group of friends in recent years, and I have also ventured way outside of my comfort zone which is something that I am extremely proud of. In many ways I welcome rejection from the world, because it has led me to forge a path of my own and I love the person I have become.
 “Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.”~ Abraham Lincoln

Works Cited

"Quotes About Comfort Zone." (21 Quotes). Goodreads, 24 Mar. 2010. Web. 06 Dec. 2013.

"Abraham Lincoln." BrainyQuote. Xplore, 09 Mar. 2008. Web. 06 Dec. 2013.