User:Warrior3825/sandbox

Early Life
Brendan Slovacek was born on January 29th, 1997 in Barrington, Illinois to Mark and Cynthia Slovacek. The youngest of two children, he was raised following the interests of his older brother, Brett, who was born four years before him. Quickly, Brendan Slovacek became involved in sports, Cub Scouts, and singing in the Children's Choir at his church. He was baptized in 1997 by the Rev. Fr. Robert Sherry at his home parish, the Church of Holy Apostles, in McHenry, Illinois. Both his elementary school and his junior high school were at opposite ends of his residential street growing up. Besides, the occasional vacation, trips to the store, and going to church, he rarely left his neighborhood and local friend group until high school.

In junior high, he began to excel in sports, particularly football. Due to his sudden increased interest in sports, his academics began to slip. After finding a careful balance between school and sports, he went on to be a part of his 8th grade junior high football team's first undefeated regular season in 14 years as a starting wide receiver. where he was awarded honors by the coaches. By this point in his life, he began to focus more on sports and popularity than family and academics. With the support of friends, coaches and family members, he prepared for his high school football season under the impression that his freshman season would shine the spotlight of the whole town down upon him. Also in his 8th grade year, he began dating a student from a neighboring junior high school. He spoke often of her to his friends, however kept their relationship a secret from his family.

High School
Shortly before Slovacek's freshman school year began, his relationship with his girlfriend of over a year ended, launching him into a bitter gossip war with many of their mutual friends. As the school year began, he was placed in the honors classes at McHenry East High School. In August of 2011, during his freshman year football season, he received a severe hip injury from football that restricted him from all sports for nearly two years. His left hip labrum had torn due to hip impingement, which coincided with his hamstring tearing, causing his weakened pelvic bone to break. Besides those injuries, he also tore numerous muscles, damaged several nerves, including the sciatic nerve, injured his growth plate and dislocated his hip, followed by relocating the hip when he hit the ground. Due to a high pain tolerance, he was under the impression he had pulled his hamstring and continued to try to play until one of the coaches noticed his limping and removed him from play. After months of physical therapy for what had been assumed to be a pulled hamstring, Dr. Shane Nho of Midwest Orthopedics (Team Physicians of the Chicago White Sox, Bulls and Fire) performed surgery on February 15th, 2012 to repair the hip impingement and reshape the joint, followed by another surgery on September 19th of the same year to correct piriformis syndrome, which had caused pressure on his sciatic nerve. He saw a local sports physical therapist twice a week for nearly 2 years to rehabilitate from the injuries and surgeries.