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As the title of his self-biography suggests, Rompza's journey has been wrought with obstacles. For starters, people laughed and completely dismissed him when he suggested that he was going to get a D1 scholarship and play varsity ball for the prestigious Whitney Young Magnet High School that has turned out such basketball greats as Duke National Champion and NBA star Jahlil Okafor and NBA star Quentin Richardson, as well as other notable academic alumnists such First Lady Michelle Obama and NASA Astronaut Joan Higginbotham. "My entire life I've had to go against the grain." Rompza explains. "I had to do everything that no one ever thought I could do. But I knew that I could do it. I believed in myself and I've worked extremely hard to accomplish my dreams. But it wasn't easy, especially coming up in Chicago and telling people ... 'Hey I want to go to Whitney Young to play basketball.' And then they look at you immediately and say you're not even tall enough to play. 'You must be crazy! You're a 5 foot 5 white kid. There's no way you will even make the Freshmen B team at that school." People would sneer. But not only did he make the team, he started Varsity as a freshman, became one of the best point guards in the city, and then the state... and then went on to start all four years at Central Florida University alongside Michael Jordan's son Marcus on a $40,000 a year scholarship.
Rompza was truly a game changer when he stepped out on the court. He was agile, he was fast as lightning, and boy could he shoot. He quickly became Conference USA's most hated player as most teams couldn't figure out how to defend against him. But the home town fans at UCF loved him, and there is still a strong consensus among the Knight's alumni that he is arguably the most beloved player in the school's history.
After college, he went to play professional basketball in Venezuela, but his dreams of a global superstar career were cut short when he severely broke his ankle at his very first professional workout. "It was probably the hardest thing that I have ever gone through." Rompza recalls. "I went from being the most popular kid at CFU out of 60,000 students, to teachers and professors asking to take pictures with me, to flying on Michael Jordan's private jet and hanging out with his son Marcus... to having to go back home and live with my mom and losing everything. It was in the darkest place that I'd ever been in... in my life." He reflects back. "That whole situation changed me and I promised myself that when I got out of it, that I was going to help and inspire as many people as I could because I never wanted anyone to have to feel that same dark way or go through something like that."
Fast forward to the present, Rompza has completely lived up to that promise he made and is now a motivational personality and author with a huge International social media following, and has also (Continued)
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