The following article originally appeared in Juniata High School's newspaper The Arrowhead.  

On March 22, JHS students were taken down to the auditorium for what seemed to be a regular old assembly. This assembly, however, was far from regular. It was Marc Mero, speaker for Champion of Choices! Marc was involved professionally in hockey, football, and boxing before becoming a WWE wrestling champion.

Today, Marc travels to schools sharing his story of redemption and triumph over the darkest of times. From the time that he was a boy, Marc had big goals and dreams for his future. He would write them down in a little book and he says that writing his goals down helped him to achieve them. However, all of the success and fame that came with reaching his goals wasn’t as fabulous as it once seemed. Marc began to associate with people that tore him down instead of building him up. These so called “friends” led Marc to become addicted to drugs and alcohol. Along with this, Marc experienced the death of his mom, younger sister, and younger brother. He explained that if he could go back in time he’d change his choices and be kinder to his family and spend time with them. Unfortunately, nobody can go back in time. Marc made the decision to get help with his addictions and change the people he spent his time with. These choices changed and literally saved his life.

Marc has one lesson that he tries to teach everyone he meets: Choices - they determine who you are and what your future is so, make good ones. This is advice that you should definitely hold on to and after hearing his story you get a better understanding of why choices matter. I asked several students what they thought of the assembly and this is what they said: 

Jesse Kirk, who has seen many videos of Marc’s story online, said, “It doesn’t matter how many times you watch him, you’ll always get emotional. Definitely a life changer.”.

Trenton Colpetzer replied, “Out of all the assemblies I’ve been to in the past 4 years, this was hands down the best.”.

Mackenzie Yohn said, “Marc was very inspiring. He showed us that if you’re ever in a rough place it doesn’t mean you can’t ever recover from it.”.

You can connect with Marc on Facebook, Twitter (@MarcMero), and Instagram (@marcmero).