ON TRACK: THUNDERBOLT ATHLETICS
I grew up in a very poor area of Romania. There, I learned to survive mostly by myself. I was taken from my mother at age 5 due to neglect, and was placed in two different orphanages before my parents rights to see me were completely taken away. The orphanages were terrible and I waited for the day when someone would come to adopt me. Finally, that day came. When I was 7, a man came to take my little sister and I to America. In my new family, my two older brothers were huge sports fans. They introduced me to soccer, baseball, football, and basketball. I loved sports, except for soccer, which I could never get the hang of. Things with my adopted family never worked out. I was failing in school and they didn’t really know what to do with me. At age 13, I left their house. My life after that became a living hell. I was skipping school, using drugs, running away, and was even locked in jail. I am not proud of that, and remember those times of my life as being really dark. I felt really lost and like there wasn’t anybody to care about me.
Thunderbolt