Gianna Martin is a Junior at Struthers High School who plays on the girls basketball team. She does this along with volleyball and being an academically-inclined student.
She’s enjoyed playing basketball since she was 6 years old, and she loves pushing through the tiring and hard work it takes to practice for the season. She stayed very dedicated throughout her entire career in this.
She has one WNBA player that she looks up to the most.
Martin says, “My favorite basketball player is Paige Beckers. I love that she gives all of her effort and always tries to perfect herself. It is very motivational to see someone push to be the best.”
Basketball has taught her many things, like not giving up no matter how hard it gets or the circumstances. It takes a lot to put your mistakes aside and keep working for what you want, and she feels this applies in real life as well.
She is all about pushing through and keeps going to continue her journey, and it comes easy to her.
Martin says, “The easiest aspect of the game is just having good sportsmanship. It’s not hard to just be nice even though you are competing. Things like picking a girl up when she falls are just common courtesy. The hardest thing to master is definitely the mindset. Pushing yourself through hard times when you’re not scoring or doing as well as you thought you’d do are probably the hardest parts of basketball.”
She takes criticism well because she always wants to continue striving and being great; she doesn’t accept straight slander though. She trusts her coaches and team will say and lead her into the right direction.
Teams always have to work together especially when overcoming a challenge.
Martin says, “I feel like every time we are on the court. Basketball is a very dependent sport. We need each other in order to do everything. We are always overcoming challenges on the court because games nor practices are never easy.”
There is always a lot of pressure, but she always stays strong and plans to keep this mindset to continue her career all the way to college.
