- 2022 Spotlight
Personal Statement
My name is Lara Gianni, I'm 17 years old and I’ve played basketball for a total of 12 years now. Basketball has always been an extremely significant and influential component of my life and my greatest aspiration is to continue to give basketball this essential role in my life.
I am both Italian and Norwegian and call Rome, Italy home. I'm a shooting guard playing for Stella Azzurra Basketball Academy, an elite European club. At the moment, I am playing in two leagues being U19 and Serie B (senior league). In addition to this, I am also a member of the Norwegian national basketball team (U18 and U20). Regrettably, due to the global pandemic that we have all been experiencing for quite some time now, I have never had the opportunity to play in an official FIBA tournament as all competitive contact sports had been suspended, but hopefully this year, unlike the previous one, I will have this opportunity.
As a basketball player, I consider myself as having great athletic ability, a determined mindset, and a professional attitude and character. To begin with, as a shooting guard, I am particularly skilled at shooting. I have high shooting percentages from anywhere on the court, especially from the three-point arc. In addition to this, having spent the majority of my childhood and teenage years in a team, I have developed traits related to teamwork. I am a collaborative and cooperative person and I do this by communicating on and off the court, allowing me to acquire a leadership role. Lastly, having played this sport for more than half of my life, I have acknowledged, by observing successful players around me, what a professional player should act like. A professional player is determined, able to work under pressure, and uses failure and defeat in a constructive way.
Along with basketball, proper education is also of great importance to me. I consider myself an ambitious, driven, and dedicated student. I have always attended Marymount International School of Rome, a school that has offered me a values-based education modeled on an American curriculum that includes international standards and benchmarks. I have begun the International Baccalaureate (IB) program this fall, a program that provides an internationally accepted qualification for entry into higher education. Despite my intense commitment to basketball, I have been able to receive and maintain the highest of grades in this program. I have been able to thrive in both sports and my education by adopting an extremely functional organizational approach that permits me to stay on top of all my activities. In relevance to my education, I am looking to commit to a school with a solid academic and basketball program for four years. The field of study which I am interested in is Psychology.
To conclude, I believe that the US has the capacity to make my uppermost goal a reality. I believe this firstly because the US places more emphasis and resources on youth sports than any other country in the world. I admire the amount of trust and faith that the US systems place upon young individuals as it encourages them to pursue their dreams. Secondly, I believe that the US is the perfect place for me as both a young female athlete and student as the US gives females more opportunities, both in sports and in the workplace, than just about any other country.
It would mean the world to me if you could take a look at my highlight videos and the additional information that I have uploaded about myself. I look forward to hearing from you if you are interested in me as both a basketball player and a student.
Un caro saluto (in Italian),
Vennlig hilsen (in Norwegian)
My best regards,
Lara Gianni
