1.  Tony Allison - Has been my biggest influenced on the team. Through the years that I have known him he has continually inspired me to try and improve myself and my walk with God. He is an amazing dunker and an amazing friend.

2.  Jeremy Mahan – Is the other team member that has impacted my life the most since I met him at the beginning of the 2005 school year. He has been a model of humility.

3.  Justin Bernard - My roommate from my first year at Liberty who is now an RA on dorm E9. He has helped me in more ways than I can count. He continues to live his life for God and is used by God in more ways than he knows. If God had allowed me to design a best friend I couldn’t have designed a friend as good as the one God gave in Justin.

4.  Brittany Whitehurst - The best female friend that I could have ever imagined is my girlfriend Brittany. She has been there for me through the darkest hours of this past year. Not only as an influence on my personal life, but also my spiritual life. I love her with all of my heart and again I couldn’t have designed a more perfect companion if I tried.

Jesus Christ – Of course my ultimate role model.

Both of my parents were really young when I was born. My mom was 16 and my dad was 19 so they basically started with nothing. A few years later they got married and less than a year later my sister Brittany was born. About 3 years later my parents after several small split ups got a divorce. A little while after that they were both re-married, to other people. The fights continued and to say the least I had a dysfunctional childhood. The only thing that kept me sane was playing sports, so I dedicated a lot of my time to competition. At times I was involved in 4 different sports at once. I did normal things, had a ton of friends and always had a girl friend…… but i was never really happy. After my parents got re-married I put on a smile most of the time and tried to please everyone. I did okay in school but got into trouble all the time. My family lived a normal dysfunctional life. Then one day when I was bout 13 my dad went to a church.

I had been to Catholic Church growing up but this was the first time I had gone to a Christian Church and an amazing thing happened that Sunday. My dad accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior. It wasn’t long after that my mom went to Church and wouldn’t you know it she accepted Christ as well. About 2 or 3 months after that I also accepted Christ, or so I let everyone think. I played along with the Church thing by reading my Bible and being one of the core kids in the youth group. Everything was working great and everyone was happy, everyone but me. I still felt horrible and the only real pleasure I got was playing sports. Unfortunately that pleasure only lasted until the last inning or the last quarter of a basketball game. In spite of my parent’s new found faith they still fought constantly and it was really rough on me for awhile. I tried a lot of things to try and take the pain away. I think it was 3rd grade when I smoked my first cigarette and 5th grade when I had my first taste of alcohol. Nothing worked. I tried filling the void I had in my heart with girls and church, but it had gotten to the point where I didn’t even enjoy sports anymore.

I hated life and didn’t want to be here anymore so in 9th grade I swallowed a whole bottle of 800mg Motrin trying to escape the void that was crushing me. When I woke up I was somehow ok. Having failed I thought that I must be cursed because I was not able to end my life. Looking back now I know that it was God who saved me because He had a plan for my future.

Everything changed in the summer of 2001 as one of the funniest and kindest men I have ever known died July 4. It was at that time that I really started asking myself what I was living for. Soon after I re-attend a Christian youth summer camp in Delmarva, on the border of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. I viewed it as a fun place to hang out with friends and was not concerned about the Christian aspect of the week at all but God had been preparing my heart to truly hear from him for the first time. On July 11, 2001 I opened my heart to Jesus and gave my life to Him.

For the first time I wasn’t living my life to please people. I was living my life to please God and wow this was so much better. I can’t even try to begin and explain the difference that has taken place in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve messed up and done my fair share of sin but I have never looked at it the same. Now when I do something wrong I feel bad. Not the kind of bad that you feel when you do something and get punished for it, the kind of hurt that you feel when you let someone that you love down. That’s why it is so important to be real with God; He is like the dad that you don’t mind getting disciplined by because you know it is for your own good. I live for God and now instead of feeling that same old empty void I feel filled and I never want to go back to being empty.

I believe God is calling me to full time ministry as a youth pastor.

In addition, I have dreamed of creating a missions team called “Front Liners” -soldiers for Christ who are standing on the front line of the war against satan.

I would also like to start year round sports camps in North Carolina. I know from growing up in Baltimore, not 2 min from the City, God has called me to work with city kids and children who come from broken homes. This is where the sports camps come in. They would mainly be summer camps, but also as an after school location to come and play in a safe Christian environment. The “Park” would include; a skate park, basketball courts, baseball and softball fields, game area, exercise rooms, as well as an out door course for hiking and bike riding. I have no idea where God wants to take this but I’m willing to find out how big He is.