Plano, Texas

When I moved to Plano to train with coach Warren Maxwell and partner Flo Steed, my sister had already been living there for a couple years. The Hale family was amazing, renting out their two extra rooms to my sister and me. They were great, treating us like their own, which made the whole moving process much easier.

Plano was not a place I was used to. I had lived in downtown Chicago my whole life, with tall buildings, lots of traffic and noise, and cold winters. Before I went to school for the first time at Shepton H.S., I honestly had never seen so many white kids in my life. It was a big culture shock.