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Hello! I am Burak Dağlıoğlu;
I was born in 1993. They say that honesty brings
love, respect and friendship where diligence
brings success. But the game I have played
brought honesty, positivity, respect, delight, dili-
gence, but most importantly, responsibility. The co- ordination exercises in trainings taught us to be careful in what we
do in life, the passing exercises taught us to share, the rules of the game taught us discipline, scoring taught us to be
able to enjoy the small things and be happy and the victories brought in the habit to win. Isn’t that the main purpose of
the ÜSO? ÜSO is not to be perceived as just a game; it is a home preparing us for life, giving us a vision.
Actually I have chronic asthma, an illness unloving sports and dusty environment. I started playing basketball with my
father in the parks on the shoreline and continued, despite everything. My father is my first coach and my doctor as well,
we might say. Sports and healthy nutrition must have helped strengthening my immunity system as my illness is not re-
curring nowadays.
Later on in 2007, I learned about the ÜSO from my friends and I started basketball training there. I also play the guitar in
the orchestra of the ÜSO Family, in a musical group called ‘Momentum’. Almost all of its members are ÜSO students. We
gave many concerts to ÜSO students and teachers.
I worked with many valuable trainers at the ÜSO. Ali Kaval, whom I call my head coach and my second father, is one of
the most important for me. He is a great coach, always nearby, someone to whom we confided our problems and shared
everything. I thought it would be unfair not to mention the names… I continued my sporting life playing in different sports
clubs. I experienced great stress while getting ready for the University entrance examinations. My attempts ended some-
how in disappointments and I felt hopeless. I defined myself as ‘the boy swimming upstream’ until I talked to my es-
teemed elder and ÜSO President Suzan Kum. She made me bring my abilities into the open by showing me the right way.
I made use of my sporting ability in entering the University. We worked hard on the tracks for days together with Cem
Sevinç, my friend and my music companion from ÜSO, to be able to make it to the University. Our efforts were not unre-
warded, we both won scholarships from Haliç University, School of Physical Education and Sports.
There is something that I truly believe in; there is always a hope as long as you are honest and bear good intentions,
someone will surely come up to help you make the right choices. A former student of ÜSO, what we call ‘the seed’, and
now I am training the children full of love for sports as an ‘old hand and an educated’ trainer. For me, training the kids
and teaching them things is the best job in the world. I already have many children of my own at this young age. My
‘Teachers Day’ was celebrated and I received presents from my children. What a feeling. I had never experienced an-
ything similar before. That’s how my ÜSO career goes on. I thank thousands of times to everybody who has helped
me and showed me a way. I shall keep travelling on that way and who knows; maybe I might help some others in the
same way.
PS: My dear teacher Ms. Suzan; we would have loved to express our feelings about you but we are in a loss for adequate
sentences. Thank you for not leaving us alone in this hippodrome of exams. Again, I guess we would have been lost in
the hippodrome if it weren’t for you.
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