Personal Statement
My name is Matthew Willis and I am a Senior at Whitney High School in Rocklin, California. I live at home with my parents and my sister attends San Diego State. Over the years, in addition to playing basketball I have played many sports including golf, baseball, soccer, and running cross country. I have volunteered through my church as a basketball counselor for young kids, as well as attending a week long mission trip to Mexico last year. I already have well over one hundred community service hours for my school. This year in school I am taking two AP courses and one advanced class, so I spend a lot of my free time studying for my more difficult classes.
I started playing basketball in second grade in a league for fun. When I got to sixth grade I decided to play competitively. When I joined the program they initially put me on the lowest level team and then soon after my passion for basketball, and drive to compete, separated me from the others and I progressed within the program, making it to the top team within 2 years. I was the captain for my middle school team both years. In high school I was selected to play junior varsity as a freshman. By the end of the season I was selected as MVP (the team was 22-4) and was brought up to play on the Varsity team for the playoffs. I was leading scorer on the varsity team my sophomore year (hitting 95 threes), and earned 1st Team All League my Junior year (increasing my ppg and hitting 80 threes). Each year as I have raised my level of competition, I have also increased my love for the game. I found the higher level of competition to be a better fit and it has made me a much work harder and become a much better player as a whole. I continuously set goals for myself as an athlete and strive hard to achieve these goals. Every time I achieve a goal I create a new one; one of my primary goals is to play basketball at the collegiate level.
I believe my drive, demeanor, and ability separate me from other recruits. In all of the sports that I have played my coaches all describe me as "calm, cool. and collected". My ability to stay focused and calm has been a key factor in my success to date. One of my major strengths is my shooting ability. All of my basketball coaches are constantly pushing me to shoot the ball more. But as my AAU coach tells me, I am much more than just a shooter. I have worked hard to improve my dribbling and have been focusing on attacking the basket, which has resulted in my shooting more free throws and scoring more than I ever have.
