I Am A Professional Athlete

Ever since I could remember, soccer had been in my life. If there was a soccer team that needed a coach, my father was always the first to volunteer. There were almost too many strenuous weekends spent hours away from home for soccer tournaments to count. My entire family, consisting of my parents, my siblings, my dog, and myself, packed in a mini-van heading to a city that I had never heard of for soccer games. But when I entered high school, all that would soon go away. I kept playing the same sport that I always had, although now I had to wake up at five in the morning for six hours of high school soccer practice in the smoldering summer heat in order to make the high school team. High School sports were more competitive than anything I had done before. I put in as much effort as I could to make the Varsity High School team, staying out past dinner to practice even longer. I was utterly divulged in soccer and trying to be the best I could be. Soon, I would regret placing a game over spending time with my family.

I had apprehensively tried out for high school soccer, knowing that kids from surrounding towns, who had all played travel on flashy, winning, teams, would be my competition. All I had wanted was to make that freshman team, to be part of a soccer program that in recent years had been a championship winning team. Fortunately my hard work payed off and I made that team. It was during my time in the school soccer program that I had not only grew as a player but met some of the people that I now call my best friends. The team required dedication,

Life is like shooting a basketball, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose but there will always be a chance to try again. Being active and hardworking will help me play sports in highschool and help me become a professional athlete. But before i become a pro athlete i have to work hard, persevere, and do the extra work on my own to become better.

Growing up all I ever wanted to be was a professional football player, my dream was to make it into the NFL and repay my parents for all they've done for me. My whole life I was told to find something I love to do and stick with it, that's when I knew that football could be my free ticket out of Hawai’i. As my knowledge grew, I started to realize the struggles college would put my parents through financially, and that's when I decided football was the way to take care of that all. But as a kid, you don't see the full picture and you honestly never will, but all I knew was that I hated school and loved to play sports. Growing up I've always had people tell me to take care of my school work and be a student first. As a kid, you understand what

When I started my soccer career during my freshman year, I began in the junior varsity team. I was not so familiar with sports until I started playing football and soccer. I once believed that I was not good enough to join the team, but after committing myself to conditioning and being determined to give my best to every practice, I proved myself wrong. Not only did I make it to the team, however I was also a starting player. For the following year, my sophomore year, I transferred into a different high school. There, I played in the Varsity team as a right defense for my sophomore and junior year. This year, 12th grade, I will be a captain for the soccer team. I was able to not only build strong friendships with my teammates, but also with

From what I know my legacy that I leave behind in middle school is completely up to me, so the way I perform in soccer, by coming in the game twice as a backup, and stopping three breakaways, is what I will be what I want to be known for... I had many great accomplishments, but not a lot of Academic ones so I will just name two. Which were in fact never getting anything under a B+ in Math, and Social Studies, but when it comes to the other classes I just cannot set my mind to it. But it never stops me from trying my hardest. But for what I know I still touch many of my family’s lives, considering that I am the starting goalie for the soccer team, and actually might be making it somewhere when it comes to math. Since I accomplished a problem or two last year before my teacher did.

I feel that this excerpt stood out to me for many reasons. The first being that I am sure that many people can relate to this quote and feel that they had a similar experience. Personally, I can relate to this excerpt because I have tried playing another sport, and I tried my hardest to train, but after a little while, I started to realize that I wasn’t truly enjoying myself, which is what sports are all about. Another reason is because many people are unsure of what they want to be when they grow up, and end up spending their time in college for something they didn’t truly want to do. Finally, it seems that many parents choose for their kids what their career choice is going to be without the kid having a say in it. With that being said, many kids can end up doing something they don’t want to do for the rest of their life, and not enjoy the good things in life.

At the start of high school my life began to take a turn. Up to that point my life had been predictable. I had the same friends, played the same sport, and was still an introverted person. My life was bland. Baseball is what I grew up playing throughout my childhood. It was that sport I looked forward to practicing, playing, and enjoying. As I started to get older, the people and coaches I played with changed. I began to play less, and wasn’t improving every week like I had hoped. I even tried out for the school team, but I was cut. For these reasons, my dedication to this sport was deteriorated. Trying out for the school team wasn’t what I wanted to do, but it’s what I presumed everyone expected of me. Once I ran passed this realization, I stopped playing baseball. This is not how I envisioned the future.

Every student athlete dreams of playing the sport they love in their future, whether it is in college or even to go play as a professional. I have played other sports in my life, but soccer has always been my favorite sport. I decided to drop every other sport I was in to play soccer. It was a pretty hard decision because I really did like playing other sports, but I really wanted

From one week to another I started feeling so much pain in my back I honestly did not know what it was I tended not to pay attention to it that whole week. Until at the end of the week it got to a point where I couldn't move nor stretch that was when I realized my high school soccer career would end. I played soccer as a freshman and as a sophomore I always tried my best I was ready for soccer this time and I had just gotten back from a Europe trip which made me learn new things about soccer. My goal for high school was to be able to play all four years since I had already made the team freshman year.

Ten years ago I saw my first soccer game and up until recently I wanted to be a soccer player ahead of my second passion which is computers. Like most kids, all I ever dreamed of is being a pro athlete. I played soccer all 4 years of High school. I went to the camps and training sessions of many colleges. I even went to the extent of trying out for many professional teams. On March 29th of this year I went to Score Indoor, an indoor soccer arena in Fairburn, to play a small scrimmage game. Something in my head told me that I shouldn’t play but I shrugged it off. 20 minutes into the game I was tackled hard and long story short, I tore my acl. Tearing my acl crippled so many of my plans. In June I had probably the most important tryout of my life. I was going to try out for 3 of the biggest teams in Mexico. At the time I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. All I ever thought about was going pro.

Entering that room, nothing could have prepared me for what was to come. As I sat there my heart dropped when I heard the words, "you made the team", "you are not going to play much", and "if you tryout next year you will not make the team". I was in such a daze as I reemerged from the room. It was as if the wind had been knocked out of me and I was having trouble understanding what had just happened. I had never felt disappointment like I did in that moment in my entire life. Soccer had been the only sport I knew for 8 years. Change had always been a struggle for me since I was little so I was aware that trying a new sport was going to be difficult. Field hockey captains practices were held during the summer, so I decided to go to one and

Opportunities like those come very few times in a lifetime. Maybe only once in a lifetime. For some, it just never appears. Luckily I was handed the opportunity that everyone wishes for. Philadelphia Union, a professional MLS team, had sent my dad an email about a month ago saying they wanted me to go to Philadelphia to try out for their youth soccer team. At the point I was notified by my dad of this news, I was ecstatic, joyful and mostly eager to go to Philly and try out already. I’ll admit: I got emotional the moment I was told of this glorious opportunity. Never before had I been given such a chance, such an opportunity to someday reach my goals of playing professional soccer in front of thousand-plus fans.

When you expand your outlook, experiences quickly become challenging. This lesson came to me during soccer, a shift made more notable due to my passion for it. When I made the travel team at age ten, it seemed the only direction was upward. I stood on the pride of my past, yet the heightened competition buried my previous precociousness; games went from hat tricks to bench warming. Team practices were not enough--I was going to have to put in extra time and work.

All your life you’ve dreamed big, but would your dream turn into reality? Imagine someone other than yourself putting it in your head what you're set out to be in life. Highschool football was everything to me. I've taken many sacrifices such as quitting my job; picking up unnecessary classes, and focusing on football it's self instead of other important responsibilities. These three things set me back, regrettably I became an athlete instead of a student athlete. With no desire to do anything else in life I always wondered when this is over what's next?