As good as you might be, you could always be doing more.

That is the lesson Colton Weisbrod wishes he had learned when he was younger. It’s a level of self-awareness that gets easier to experience with age, he says, but if young folks learn to develop it early enough, they can grow to reach even greater heights.

“You might be a senior kid going into college working out really hard for an hour a day,” Weisbrod says. “You feel like you’re doing all you can and you’re good on conditioning, but there’s a reason when you get to college as a freshman that first month and you don’t want to get out of bed because your legs hurt so bad. You think you’re ready for what’s next but you’re really not.

“There’s really more that you could be doing. The more you grow, the more you start to realize that. If you can get that into your head at a younger age, your growth could be exponentially more that what it could have been.”

Weisbrod was once that high school senior. He was district MVP his junior and senior years and the 4A Player of the Year as a senior. He was conference MVP while at Lamar State College Port Arthur and All-American. He was first team All-Conference both years he was playing at Lamar University.

But Weisbrod found he still had some growing to do. He has now come out of one of the hardest years of this life in 2019. With no more basketball prospects after training with the Los Angeles Lakers’ G-League team, the 2014 Nederland High grad and Lamar basketball star changed managers to look for new opportunities. He found one in France.

He got started with Kaysersberg-Ammerschwihr Basket Center Alsace with an injury, a fracture just above his knee, keeping him off the court for about two weeks. He was also away from his wife and children for two months before they moved to France to be with him. Weisbrod struggled to get on the same page with the team and the coach. He ultimately left the team in December and is returning back to the states to figure out his next move.

His year was challenging, he says. I wouldn’t doubt it.

“It’s been every bit as difficult as anything I’ve went through in my life,” Weisbrod said. “It’s been dark at times, and it’s been great at times. It’s definitely been a roller-coaster. This was the year that really forced me to reach that low level, build out of it and get back to that motivated feeling of just driving to get back to the top.”

After this experience, Weisbrod knows himself a little better, and I think he’s going to be just fine because of it.

By keeping his lesson in mind, growing as a person might not have to be quite as painful for the rest of us.

Brad Robichaux is a reporter for The Port Arthur News. He can be reached at brad.robichaux@panews.com