Personal Narrative: Cocky 13 Year Old Player

We walked together to the field, the spikes on the bottom of my cleats clicking with each step on the parking lot pavement. A huge field with onlookers filling the bleachers on the far side came into view, lit up by the soft evening light. I spotted the girls on my team and my tired looking grey-haired coach. Me and my dad split up, me going to warm up with my team and my dad going to sit with the team parents. As I was passing with my teammates I watched the opposing team carefully. I observed how neat their drills were and how accurate their shots and passes were. They all looked so athletic and that really made me doubt myself. How was I supposed to prove to everyone that I was a good player if I had to play against a team this good? What if I mess up and the other team completely destroys my team? The loud buzzer that ended the warm ups sounded and both teams went to their side of the field. My coach called today’s starters out, and luckily he didn’t choose me. Relieved, I went to go sit on one of the hard metal chairs they provided for the teams on the sidelines. The chairs were uncomfortable but that didn’t bother me. I had other things on my mind. I sat shivering watching the events of the game

It was a hot summer day in Hammond, Louisiana and I was pouring down sweat like I had just jumped in a pool. The game was just about to begin, me and my team was eagle eyeing the bomb squad. It was so quiet that you could hear your own sweat hitting the bench. The umpire broke up everyone’s concentration by saying, “play ball”! The defense had ran out on the field and I started rolling ground balls from 2nd to short-stop to third base. They had all made good throws back to me and then I threw the ball into the dug-out because the game had begun.

The pressure was on. Myself as well as my middle school football team had been practicing for weeks to beat our opponent, Southport Middle School. They had beaten up the year before and it was our turn to pay them back.

When I was younger, basketball was all I wanted to play, it just looked like so much fun. In fifth grade I had my parents sign me up for CYB, then in sixth grade I tried out for middle school basketball and played all the way up until ninth grade. In middle school when I was in eighth grade I was awarded the captain position and that helped me build leadership and responsibility. All of the players especially the younger ones knew they could always come to me at any time if they needed anything or help with anything. High school basketball was a lot different than middle school. In middle school I was one of the star players so I played a lot but in high school that changed. I sat the bench a lot that taught me patience and understanding even

I am a baseball player who loves to play baseball and very good at it,

Walking out onto the opponent’s brightly lit turf field setting up for the kickoff of the second half just gave me the feeling that everybody knows, my hair starts to stand up, butterflies began to flutter in my stomach, and everything seems to slow down. Looking into the stands and seeing that our hometown fans had traveled four hours in order to outdo the home crowd gave me a sense of comfort. Looking into East Jefferson’s stands and seeing that our fans, despite having to travel all the way down south, outnumbered their fans by at least 70 people. I found myself thinking that this meant just as much to our town as it did to our school and team. This feeling would be just the motivation we needed in order to finish this game

With my eyes glued to the ball. Just waiting for the center to snap it to the quarterback I made sure my cleats were dug in and ready to go. As the center moved the ball I charged forward shoving the center out of the way and slamming my shoulder into the quarterback and taking him down before he had a chance to blink. After the play, there was time to think to myself about the past week, the events that had transpired, the important decision I had made, and about that one sunny day at practice.

It was a brisk fall evening, and my seventh grade youth football team and I had traveled to Aberdeen to play the undefeated Chiefs. We had worked harder and longer than we ever had that week to show that we were a threat in the league and ascend from our third place ranking. We knew it was not going to be easy; the Chiefs’ team had the fastest running back in our division, and they had scored more total points per game than any other team in the Southeast Idaho Youth Football League. The field was neater and greener than we had expected in this town. It was a great day for football, and I was with all of my best friends. I knew going in that it was going to be a learning experience whether we won or lost that night because the Chiefs were

Going into that game we had convinced ourselves that we had already lost before it even started. We were about as flat as a tabletop. While warming up we were pretty much just waiting for the game to end, so that we could just leave and just call it a year!” Once the game actually started something just clicked. We

The Richard Thompson Stadium started to get packed while we warmed up. Our team consisted mainly of sophomores and juniors, if there were more than 5 freshmen I would be exaggerating. I was putting on my cleats to start moving the ball and Vicente, one of the freshman said, “I wish Coach Nunez would let me play today.” “You might get some minutes depending on how the game goes,” I replied. Then, one of the juniors started laughing and told us, “look kidos, there are no chances of you kicking a ball tonight!” We did not pay much attention to him and kept on getting ready just in case. Coach Nunez was talking to the varsity Coach and suddenly he shouted, “Rojas! Come here.” I thought he was going to ask me a favor or tell me to go get something from the locker. “Rojas, I need you to be a wall in the midfield. No te quiero ver parado. Tell Kevin [one of

I got dressed ready to play the best team in Ohio but we thought we were better. We were all ready to play the game fair and square.

My sophomore year of highschool I was not very good at baseball. Honestly, the team as a whole was not very good. We were a young and immature team; we did not have very much success throughout the year. We actually had a losing record that year at sixteen and twenty-four, and that is embarrassing if you ask me. The entire season was honestly a disappointment because we knew that we were much better than that, and the next year we would prove that theory true. The next year the team made a complete 180 degree turn. Although, at the beginning of the season we started with three straight losses; The season turned for the better quickly.

We had gone 3-20 the season before and had not beaten our rival Troy Christian in basketball in seven years before this game. Earlier that season we had lost to Troy Christian by eight points after leading by eight at halftime. Our team was disappointed, but also hungry for revenge. It seemed like eternity waiting for our rematch. The week before the game we began practicing a defensive scheme to stop Troy Christian's six-foot-eight center, James Anderson. He had led the conference in scoring and rebounding all season. He scored eighteen points and grabbed eighteen rebounds in our first meeting and we were determined not to allow that to happen again. Finally, the day came. The day that would change our program. We were ready to put an end

The next person looked like he had something up his sleeve, and he indeed did, instead of kicking real far he kicked it softly and it only went a couple of inches but he took off and so did I but the problem was the pitcher was right there, but he didn’t notice me I ran and one of the other people told him and I charged as fast as I could, I knew this idea would either end the game for us or win the game for us, I charged and sure enough he got out of the way to not get hurt.

I looked up at the scoreboard and the time read 8 minutes left. As I looked at the scoreboard I felt a jolt of energy enter my body. I had felt as if a fire was lit under me. My eyes opened as if I had just seen a ghost. I remember thinking to myself, “how can we lose this game?” I made a promise to myself that I would win 4 state titles while being at Battlefield High School. This was my sophomore year of high school and I had already won one state title, how could I give up now and let my dreams be crushed, I worked too hard for that to happen. In that moment I knew there was only one result I was going to walk off the field with, and that was with a win and another State Championship. I took a deep breath and thought to myself, “My team needs energy. They need a leader.”