Tod Holloway: The strive for success

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Anna Belculfine, Staff Writer

Tod Holloway Sr. has been a major influence and inspiration in Tod Holloway Jr’s life. When he was young, his father sparked an interest in sports and motivated him to play. He was the one who taught Tod how to play basketball, baseball, and football. He has also helped his son become the hard working athlete that he is today.

Holloway, now an athletic 15-year-old, has had a love for sports ever since he was little. He began to play baseball at age 6, basketball at 9, and football at 13. Sports are a big part of his life and between school, homework, practices and games he’s kept busy from day to day.

“Tod always comes to football practice meaning business,” says teammate Justin DeBarge. “He never fools around, he’s serious about football.”

Holloway stands at 5’5” and his height can be seen as an advantage but also as a disadvantage when he’s playing sports. “It’s an advantage because I usually use my speed to beat my opponents and that’s easier to do when you’re smaller than some of the other players,” he says. “It’s also a disadvantage because I’m not as tall as the other players and they definitely use that to their own advantage.”  

Not only does he have his dad as motivation and inspiration, his mom Laura Poehler is his biggest fan and supporter especially with all of his sporting events. She never misses any of his games.

Friends and family is something that Holloway values a lot in his life. “My friends and family really do mean alot to me, they have helped me become a better person,” he says. He says they have helped him become a better person because they love him unconditionally. They always help him out when he needs it, especially with sports and school.

Tod enjoys taking trips and just hanging out with his family. In his downtime, he enjoys playing video games and hanging out with his friends. Some of the games he plays most are Madden 16, MLB 15, and FIFA15.

Chris Webster is one of Holloway’s closest friends who he hangs out with often. When they hang out together they usually play catch with a football, watch college football, or watch the MLB. Holloway also adds that he enjoys hanging out with his teammates.  

The family he currently lives with consists of his mom Laura Poehler, step-dad Joe Poehler, younger brother Joey Poehler and his two dogs Bailey and Rocky. He also has other family including his step-mom Kari Holloway, dad Tod Holloway, and step-sister Melissa Poehler. 

“Hanging out with friends and family is something that makes me happy because it’s fun and it also releases all the stress from sports, school, and homework,” he says.

As a sophomore, Holloway is keeping his grades up so he can still participate in sports. He says that even though he’s an average student with average grades, he still takes school seriously, and school does stress him out: “School is hard, and with sports it makes it even harder to manage it all,” says Holloway.

This doesn’t stop him from wanting to go to college. He’s interested in Texas A&M, but isn’t exactly sure on what college he wants to go to yet. He also wants to continue playing sports but doesn’t know which one he wants to focus on at that point in his life.

Texas A&M is a University that is located in College Station, Texas and it has many sport opportunities for him.

“I want to get into a four year college, but if I couldn’t get into one I would want to go somewhere like HCC and then transfer to a better college,” says Holloway.

HCC is Holyoke Community College and it is located in Holyoke, Massachusetts. It doesn’t have its own football team, only baseball and basketball. Therefore, if Tod did want to keep playing football in college he wouldn’t be able to play for HCC.

His main goal in life is to succeed and do as well as he can with everything he does.

Tod’s dream in life is to become a professional athlete, get married and have a family. He is unsure on where he wants to live though. When he retires, he wants to coach kids sports because he says that he loves spending time with kids.

“I would want to become a coach even if I didn’t become a professional athlete because I want to inspire kids and teach them everything my dad taught me when I was little,”  he says.