With a team full of freshmen, winning any game is not an easy thing. For the 2019-2020 season, Skyline men’s basketball team has only one returning player on the roster. Skyline achieved 5-2 In the first 7 games since the beginning of the season. Noah Haynesworth, the only sophomore player, also a captain in the team. Haynesworth started playing basketball since the age of 7, where his brother would bring him to the park and practice shooting hoops together. Since that time, Haynesworth began to love basketball. Every summer, Skyline hosts high school basketball tournaments here at the campus, during that time, Haynesworth discovered that Skyline is competitive in the league and the coaching system is very strong and trust worthy.

“Once I was figuring out where I wanted to go during senior year, Skyline was definitely a school that stood out to me in terms of my field of education and playing basketball as well,” Haynesworth said. “There’s a lot of great things that come with playing here at Skyline. I’d say as the coaching staff like I felt really comfortable with coach Piergrossi, coach Harris like I’ve been able to have a real strong, real sense of trust.”

Being an athlete, family support is an important key to a player’s sustainability. Since his high school years, Noah’s mom has always come to his games to support him, even if his mom couldn’t be in the game, she would cheer for him in various ways through the live broadcast stream.

Haynesworth believes that mental growth is one of the necessary conditions for being a team leader. In the past, he always thought of himself as a perfectionist, someone who needs to get things right consistently in order to stand out and contribute. However, going to this year, Haynesworth has always told himself he isn’t perfect, but still strives to get closer and will always do his best.

Additionally, in order to maintain his conditioning, Haynesworth talked about his routine is the most challenging thing to keep moving forward.

“I feel like stuff like staying in shape, staying healthy, getting stronger. All those that those three aspects all together is really challenging and really tough to master in season when you’re playing for six days a week for over two hours. I think one challenge that has really stuck out to me is just staying healthy and eating right, getting enough sleep”

At the same time, Justin Piergrossi, the head coach of Skyline Men’s basketball team give him affirmation.

“He leads by example. He works hard every day. He’s ready to practice every day. So he does it mostly by leading by example. He shows the younger players how it’s done and then he just has a good mentality. He tries to stay positive as much as he can.

Regarding this, Haynesworth believes he has the aptitude to be the leader on this team.

“I always felt like I’ve been a natural leader in terms of like, pushing people forward to making themselves better and being extremely vocal and do setting or leading by example. And that challenges kind of come to life for me, I am the only person with collegian experience from my previous year.”

Perhaps, being a leader on the team is not an easy job, Haynesworth not only has to lead his teammates to win the game, but also progress himself to a higher level. Although there were some setbacks during the season, and some of the challenges are pretty massive, Haynesworth is willing to learn from the experience.