Taro Zimmerman '22 Recruiting Profile

I don’t think I would be walking today if it weren’t for basketball. I had a lot of academic and athletic success as a young kid. But on December 29th 2016, while playing basketball, all of this ground to a halt. I suffered a (still unexplainable) stroke and found myself in Children’s National Hospital in Washington D.C. I had to try and relearn how to walk and how to talk. And my recovery, at any level was far from certain. What grounded me was the desire to see myself back on the court one day. Everything I did in my rehabilitation was connected to that desire.  And everything was from zero.  I had to teach myself basic life skills.  For me, I just decided to expand that to include how to dribble, play defense, how to shoot and how to pass, and during my long inpatient rehab, my therapists were recruited to help me learn that, too. When I got out of the hospital, I set my focus on making little improvements every day. I still hold that same mentality, and strive to form small habits that will eventually amount to larger goals being checked academically and athletically. So I feel confident when I say I know how to work, and know what it means to strive for a goal that seems far away — even (to some) impossible.