“It’s not over until it’s over,” was a phrase my Grandpa used to say to me all the time.

When I was younger, my brother and I loved climbing up on my Grandpa’s tall king-sized bed and snuggling under the warm fluffy covers to watch every sports game you could imagine. It ranged all the way from the quiet golf games to the rowdy baseball games and we would watch hours of every one. His name was Ernie, and boy-oh-boy did he love sports. His love for watching sports was like toothache; it was constant.

I was born, along with my brother in Cleveland, Ohio. After moving to Puerto Rico when I was two, my parents would take us back at least four times a year, including summers, to visit our family. We would always stay in my grandparents’ house. They owned a beautiful brick house that was covered with so many trees; it almost looked like a forest. In their backyard they had a cliff that dropped down to a sight of a river. I loved it, but most of all I loved just laying down next to my grandpa especially on those chilly nights.

Out of all the sports we watched, I have to say basketball was by far his favorite. It was something about the constant motion and plays that kept him on his toes and it was the misjudgment of the refs that compelled him to yell childishly at the TV. Grandpa Ernie was the type of guy who knew exactly what was going to happen and who was going to win and he always cheered for the underdog. I remember the Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Orlando Magic playoff game in 2009. The Cavs were trailing by about four to six points the entire game. Then came the fourth quarter, they were down by two with three seconds left and I looked at my Grandpa and told him that our team was going to lose and that it wasn’t even worth watching. He looked back at me and said. “Devyn, it is not over until it’s over. We will catch up.” I remember thinking that he was crazy, there was no way the Cavs were going to win with three seconds left. Then, with one second left on the clock, the ball was instantly passed to LeBron (The leading player on the Cavaliers at the time) in which he shot from about half court and made it! My Grandpa was right. We tied.

It is now 2013 and I am sixteen years old and my current favorite sport is basketball too. I love that game to the same extend Grandpa Ernie did before he died this past year. My Grandpa never said much, but when he did it was a lot. He impacted everybody that he talked to in many ways like sharing an experience or just talking about his daily life. It was not the love for the game that he had that impacted me, but more the view that really affected me. His perception of “It’s not over until it’s over,” had changed my perspective. Every basketball game I play, even if we are losing by twenty points, I never give up until the game is over. This outlook is not only present in basketball, but also in everything I do in my life.