PATRICK CHA
Senior, Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School
IT TOOK A PARTIAL LOSS of vision for Patrick Cha to see the path to success.
Patrick was in middle school when emergency surgery for bleeding in his brain left him with impaired peripheral vision. His doctors said he could no longer play football or soccer. “All I wanted to do was prove the doctors wrong,” he says.
He took up tennis—the one sport he was cleared to play—and took out his frustration over his limited vision on the court. “Tennis became a crutch,” he says. “It allowed me to forget that I wasn’t allowed to play other sports. But I came to really enjoy it.”
A member of the varsity tennis team since freshman year, the Chevy Chase teen has been ranked as high as No. 16 among Maryland junior players and has been a champion or finalist in 10 U.S. Tennis Association junior tournaments. In 2014, he was named a finalist for the Wendy’s Heisman High School award, which honors seniors who are exceptional scholar-athletes.
After the Boston Marathon bombings in April 2013, Cha raised $7,500 by collecting pledges for every hour he practiced or played with the tennis team. He delivered the money to One Fund Boston, which distributed donations to bombing victims.
His health scare in middle school also led him to journalism. “I felt so categorized after my surgery—it made me interested in everyone else’s personal story,” says Patrick, 18, who has a 4.0 GPA.
He joined the staff of The Tattler, B-CC’s newspaper, and is now co-editor-in-chief. His writing also has been published in The Baltimore Sun and on CNN.com, and in 2014 he won a national journalism award in the Scholastic Art and Writing awards competition.
“My favorite part is meeting the people you’re writing about, hearing their amazing stories, listening to their experiences,” he says. “Once you understand the person, writing the story is the easy part.”
All Photos by Michael Ventura
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