My full name is Pat Simbarashe Cheteni-Delahoussaye and I was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I grew up as an only child and was raised by my grandparents and my mom. In elementary school I went to a Catholic school and we had to wear uniforms and go to mass on Wednesdays. The reason I was put in the school was so I could get a good education. In elementary we were put with one teacher for the entire year, so In 4th grade I was put with a teacher I didn’t like. In 5th grade I was put with the same exact teacher! I stuck it out for the year, but this contributed to me asking to transfer for middle school. I asked if I could go to a public school and my request was granted. Public school It was very different from private school and a lot more unhinged. I had always thought they got to do whatever they wanted and got to wear whatever they wanted which was true but it was not in their best interest. As I observed middle school kids, I observed things I had never seen before like kids vaping and doing graffiti in the restroom, kids getting physical with each other and romance. I never understood why the kids had such a fascination of gayness and sex. Kids would come up to me and ask me things like if I knew what porn was or if I was circumcised. I realized that I was way different than these kids and so I decided to put up a front. To cope with my true self not being accepted by society I became someone else who drew a lot of attention to himself. In middle school I turned counter-culture. What I mean is that when kids would try to show me porn or ask me if I liked a girl I would have a huge reaction like I was absolutely disgusted by the idea of anything remotely impure. The truth was that I was on the fence; afraid to become like them wanting the attention they provided. Eventually I would get tired of reacting to things because it was only to uphold an image. As people kept coming to me with these questions of if I know what porn is or if I know what sex is I gave in and looked it up. I started watching it and masterbating. Nobody knew about it so my reputation was still intact but this ended up hurting me on and off the court. On the court I was super skilled, but the mental aspect of the game was really holding me back. I had everything I needed but mentally things started really going downhill at about 7th grade. I would go to the neighboring city called El Paso and play there but my game started to slip along with my true self. The players in El Paso were much bigger and stronger than what I was used to and I let this overwhelm me. The same pressure that I felt in school to uphold an image was the same pressure I felt to be a certain type of player on the court.

In 7th grade I made a goal to become the greatest basketball player of all time and this was due to my dissatisfaction of not being the best player on the court. Now that I already wasn’t being myself it was easy to continue so I adopted a mindset of proving everybody wrong. I would lose a game and not talk to my family for the whole day. Moving on it got worse and I didn’t play much in 8th grade. I decided I wanted to homeschool in high school and play basketball under my coach. This ended up not happening as Covid hit the world. During this time I was doing what I thought I needed to do to get to the NBA. I was waking up at 4:00AM, Training for 6 hours a day and eating healthy unprocessed food. I would watch hours of youtube videos on David Goggins and Ben Lionel Scott. Somehow all of this effort kept leading to 4 point performances and nagging injuries. I had everything I needed on the outside but what I didn’t have was the confidence in knowing who I was.

I struggled a lot with being assured and 1 yell from the coach or 1 bad look from my grandma would throw my whole day off. After averaging 4 points per game in my junior year of highschool I knew I needed a change so I really dove into Jesus. My coach had been telling me about Jesus and his importance and so I bought in and my training changed completely. I was no longer training to get physically better at basketball but rather to get stronger in my faith and to renew my mind and change my identity. There have already been fruits to this process but the story continues as I am now at a point in my life where the chains of not being myself are being broken. I am learning to admit my feelings and lean in on the spirit. For example I often feel lonely as I yearn to be accepted, but understand that I must be real to truly tap into what God has in store for me. My goal for this year is to win the 2024 CIF basketball championship with Foothills Christian and my long- term goal is to be drafted in the 2027 NBA draft.

Some fun things about me are that I go to Faith Chapel church and I like to rap. I got the name Patty Buckets because I was a you-tube rapper in middle school. My rap name was Patty Buckets because my grandma called me Patty and I loved to get buckets.