Koda Adok | Overcoming Adversity [2/2]

[trevmi 21]

Yep, that's me, Koda Adok. "What kind of name is that?" I'm glad you asked. Koda means little bear, and my father's name is, well was but we'll get into that later, Mato, meaning big bear.  Now, I bet you're wondering how I got into this position of having to make a biography from playing hockey. Well hockey wasn't always my dream, but let's start at the beginning with my early childhood.

 

Early Childhood

Koda was born June 27th to his parents Mato and Tala, two Native Americans. Koda was the oldest of four children, his brothers being Micco, Kohana, and Paco. Koda's upbringing was different than most as he was raised Native American, so he learned how to hunt and farm from an early age, but he and his brothers would be separated from his parents after a fire broke out at their house when Koda was eight years old. Koda remembers waking up sometime late in the night smelling smoke. He jolted out of bed and ran to his parents room to try to wake them, but the fire was blocking his way to their room, so Koda ran to his brothers and woke them all and they ran out of the house and watched as their house burned the ground with their parents inside and they were then taken into foster care and away from the life they knew. Koda was upset, wondering if he could have done something more to help his parents.

 

Well now that I've got you crying from my traumatic childhood, let's see what happened afterwards. Will I ever get over my parent's death? Do you know how the fire started? Can you not interrupt the story? The answer to all of those questions is no, but let's go ahead to my teenage years before I start rambling.

 

Teenage Years

When Koda turned eleven years old, he started middle school and was away from his brothers as they were still in elementary school. Koda had trouble making friends and was struggling in school, so his foster parents threatened to move him to a stricter school if he didn't get his act together. Koda thought of running away or just letting them move him to the stricter school, but realized both of those options would take him further away from his brothers. He ended up just buckling down and start applying himself more in school, which included getting a tutor from his class named Sarah. After a few tutoring lessons, Koda started to become fond of Sarah and she felt the same way about him, so they started dating, and one date they went on was to a skating rink in town. Sarah had been before and was good at skating, but this was Koda's first time even seeing ice, so he felt unsure about the whole ordeal. Once he got on the ice and got used to it after falling a few times, Koda realized he really enjoyed it. After a few laps around the rink, he started to pick up speed and skating ability and was zooming past almost everyone, and Koda found out he loved skating. Once he got back home from the date, he was already begging his foster parents to let him go again the next week. They agreed and took the whole family to the skating rink, and Koda showed his brothers how to skate, and they realized they enjoyed it too. The whole time, Koda and the family kept hearing what sounded like whistles and cheering in another part of the building. Once the family finished skating, they walked over to see what was going on. They saw a bunch of men in different colored jerseys skating around with sticks trying to get a black circle on the ice into the net. The family's foster parents told the Adok family that what they were watching was hockey, and Koda fell in love with it. He asked if he could play, and the foster parents were hesitant, but agreed that if he finished the school year with at least a B- in every school subject. Koda told Sarah about what his foster parents had said and they agreed to work extra hard over the next few weeks. Koda finished out the year with every subject being at least a B so his foster parents were very proud and agreed to let him play hockey. When Koda first started to play, he found it difficult to keep up, but after a lot of work, he was able to do better than everyone else in the league. Once he got to high school, he started playing in travel leagues, where he would travel all across Florida and sometimes up to Georgia and Alabama to play other teams. Koda's team was able to win the state championship during Koda's sophomore year of high school, and traveled to Atlanta, Ga. to play in a larger tournament. During the tournament, the team looked fantastic, beating teams with scores that looked like a low scoring football game rather than a hockey game, with scores such as 10-0, 13-2, and the biggest win being against a team from South Carolina where they won 17-3. During the final game of the tournament, they played a much tougher team from Tennessee where they were tied with five seconds left. Koda had the puck and passed it across the ice to his teammate who scored the game winning goal with no time left on the clock. Koda couldn't think of a time he had been happier than that moment.

After that, they were invited to play in a nationwide tournament, where they would play the best teams from across the United States. Their first match was against a team from New England. They were a really good team and the match was much closer than any other game I played in the earlier tournament. We were actually losing this game 3-4 with seven minutes left when one of their players got away with a dirty tripping call on me. I got up and instantly got in is face yelling at him and it turned into a full on fight. Luckily he was smaller than me and I was able to overpower him and bring him to the ground. We each got five minutes in the penalty box for fighting, and once I got out there were only two minutes left in the game. I went over to the bench and the coach put me back in the game with thirty-six seconds left and we had the puck. We had already pulled our goalie and needed to score to force overtime. When I got past the blue line, I got the puck from a pass, and hit it as hard as I could towards the net. It hit off one of New England's player and got redirected into the net to tie the game with twenty-nine seconds left. One of my teammates was able to score the game winning goal in overtime to move onto the next round against Texas. We ended up losing that game 4-2 and Texas was the team that ended up winning the whole tournament. The next few years were more of the same, getting to the national tournament, but losing a tough battle against the eventual winners.

 

Yep, I never actually won the national tournament, but still had a lot of fun. You might be wondering what happened to Sarah after middle school, well turns out she was kissing other boys behind the bleachers of the football games when she said she was going to the bathrooms, I looked her up on Facebook and found out she's got two kids whose fathers have left her and lives at her mom's. Karma's a bitch ain't it. Well now let's move into my college years, well, year. I declared early for the draft.

 

College

 

Now, you might be thinking I went to a hockey school like Minnesota-Duluth or Michigan or somewhere northern, but honestly, I hate the cold. I ended up going to University of South Florida. Now you might be thinking they can't be good at hockey, but they actually are. When I was there, we made it to the ACHA finals where we were able to beat University of Kansas for the championship 5-1.

 

"What?!? That's it?!? Yep, that's all. I only played one season before declaring for the draft and I'm now waiting for draft day. My story is far from over, and I will continue working my ass off with the mentality that I have to become better than I was the day before.

[Beaviss 4,949]

This guy is a Spittin Chiclets guy

[GRZ 179]

Review:
Really well-put together story, I appreciate that you decided on a more of a "challenging" way to playing hockey, which honestly fits perfect in your story. I like your comments on each of the segments as well, adds more of a character to the whole thing. I would have liked more pictures even little ones to really evolve this biography to the next level.
Overall really inspiring and uplifting biography, well done .
 

[Rayzor_7 741]

Bio was a bit of a new style compared to most of the reads. Switching from story to comments from the player was a new spin I enjoyed reading.

It's missing even small explanatory photos though which kinda bites. Doesn't pull you in the same way or help you picture the player.

Declaring for VHLM one year into college is ballsy, lets see if it pays off! Good Luck!