by Dondria Cooper

Created on: April 02, 2009

At the young age of two, I started going to a daycare while my parents were at work and I have the people who worked there to thank for my ability to have the advance skills I had when I started elementary. By having a mother who was a teacher, I started school at Harleton at the age of five and was the only African-American child in my class. At that time I did not realize the significance of this, but I later got the full understanding. I considered myself a bright child growing up among my peers and it didn't help that one of my parents was in the same building, so all the teachers knew me personally. When I was growing up, I had dreams of becoming somewhat of a doctor figure. First it was in the medical sense and then it changed to being a dentist. I would even practice on myself and whenever my teeth would become loose I would pull them out immediately with the end result being that I needed braces by the time I was in Jr. High. My love of sports would begin in the fourth grade where I participated in a little dribbler's league in elementary giving the younger children the chance to learn basketball skills and host small scrimmages among peers.

As time went on, I started growing up and seeing the world in a different perspective. By the fifth grade my life would change dramatically. It was the year of 1997 and the world just introduced the first women's league known as the WNBA. Of course, I became hooked and my favorite team was the Houston Comets. I would joke with people and tell them Cynthia Cooper was my cousin. This is when I first had my feelings of becoming a major basketball star and I started working on my skills at home in the driveway on the hard top pavement. My ways of thinking would continue until my seventh grade year when I suffered a major sprain in my ankle during a basketball practice.

I always wondered why I loved sports the way I did because all the other girls around me had a love of sports, but I could tell it was not as deep as mine. My family has had a history of sports and even has had people play on the professional level. While in school I had a cousin who was very good in football and track. We were very close. He later went to Nebraska and played college football and then was drafted by the New Orleans Saints. We still talk and although he had some minor setbacks, he went to Canadian football and now is in Arizona playing arena football. Another cousin of mine played professional basketball and I did not become aware until

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