My success story is still being written by Juelz

My success story is still being written by Juelz - July 2025 Scholarship Essay

If I could give one piece of advice to my past self, it would be: “Don’t accept the limitations that others are putting on you. You deserve better and you can be more.”

I have overcome many challenges to become a state semi-finalist wrestler who will be a scholarship athlete next Fall with Garrett College (JUCO) in McHenry, Maryland. I never thought I could go to college, let alone be a college athlete, when I was a kid.

I was left unschooled for almost five years by my mother. I was registered with severe intellectual disability to qualify for higher benefits. I sat in our small apartment all day every day. I was often barely clothed and usually left alone. I suffered a third-degree burn. It was left mostly untreated until I got a blood infection. I also contracted MRSA in my lungs from exposure to coal dust while left to play in the train yard next to our apartment building.

My aunt finally got legal custody from my mother when I was 11. At that time, I could not read or write. At my new school I fought daily with kids who called me the “R-slur.” I felt as dumb as they said I was.
Sports, mostly wrestling, lifted me up. My first special ed case manager was our wrestling coach. He saw something in me I did not see in myself. The discipline and community of the wrestling room gave me a self-identity I never had before. School was still an issue, though.

The school helped us to identify my learning differences and set up good supports. I was also way behind because I had missed so much school. Until halfway through junior year I was on for a special education certificate of completion not a standard diploma. My wrestling success inspired me to think I was capable of more.

In my senior year I completed all of my Standards of Learning and five core classes to graduate on time. On the mat, I finished 34-4 and barely lost a close match in the state semi-finals. I received several offers from college coaches. As I walked across the stage with my diploma, I couldn’t believe how far I had come for a kid whose own mother said the only sports he could ever do was the Special Olympics.

I am proud to be going to school at Garrett College in September. I chose a junior college because I know I still have academic gaps to fill before I can succeed at a four-year school. The small campus felt like home from the moment I first visited. The coaches and advisors there already know me by name and are invested in my success. I’m not going to lie, college class work scares me but I am committed to making this work. My goal is to become a special education case manager and coach and dedicate my life to lifting up others in the way I was lifted up when I didn’t even believe in myself.