Personal Narrative Essay: Soccer Vs. Volleyball

There comes a time when you have to grow up or are forced to. You learn from past experiences and base your recent scenarios from it. Since the age of five, soccer has been part of my life. From having practice twice a week, to having practice every day of the week not including games. I felt like soccer was my pathway to success. I felt like I could do big things from it and I had all the confidence in the world but never would show it when others asked me if I was good. I’m the shy quiet girl that shows you what I’m capable of without saying a single word.

On February 28, 2005, I experienced one of the most exciting events that anyone could ever experience – winning a State Championship. The day my soccer team made history is a day I’ll never forget. However it is not just that day we won the title, but the whole experience of the preceding season that got us there. From start to finish, my team’s 2004-2005 season taught me that the platitude is true. You can do anything you set your mind to.

Middle school is a time when kids attempt to figure out how they fit in, and that is exactly what I was looking to do when I started playing volleyball. I was in seventh grade when I decided to try out, and it was only because my best friend was playing. Little did I know just how organized and complex the game was; I just assumed volleyball was a more intense version of “don’t let the balloon touch the ground.” I never thought that I would become so passionate about this sport that it would have an impact on my character.

Everything starts as a young kid that's when you make friends and most of the time those friends are the ones you experience and try new things with in my case that thing was soccer. I grew up with a lot of my older family members playing soccer i would go to my uncles and older cousin soccer games and in my head i would think to myself i want to be as good as them and maybe even one day have a chance to play with them. When i started elementary school that's when it all started for me i made friends with kids that had the same interest as me and that was soccer it would be all i would talk and think about everyday during recess me and my group of friends would rush out to the field to play some soccer and show off our skills.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have dreamt of playing volleyball for the University of Nebraska. I worked my butt of trying to get there. Club volleyball, school volleyball, sand volleyball. It was my passion, until I gave it all up.

I have always loved soccer, ever since I was small and had just started it, along with kindergarten. Now I was venturing into a new level of soccer: elementary school soccer. For the past year, I had been watching professional soccer, making sure to learn from every important detail that had made those larger than life players so extraordinary, so talented, and so perfect. I wrote down facts, statistics, and formations that seemed to bring them success. I practiced soccer often. For a while, I would practice for an hour or more at home after school, and when it got too cold to go outside, I would go in my garage to juggle and shoot the ball, then up to two hours at a time. I was so excited for the elementary school soccer program and I thought

After playing ball freshman and sophomore year, I began to lose motivation and love for the game. I began receiving less and less playing time and my confidence was being torn by the coaches. Throughout this time however, I had grown a love and appreciation for the sport of soccer. I had been playing informal pickup games on the weekends with friends. My parents encouraged me to try out for the team my sophomore

I have spent far too much time in surgery for a girl of my age. The last day of my 9th grade year I tore my ACL playing soccer. Soccer was my whole life, who I was, and I had let it define my importance. I put on a brave face but on the inside I was questioning who I really was if I didn’t have soccer. I had dedicated my life to the sport, It was the thing that gave me purpose. My talent separated me from everyone else, and all the sudden it was gone, my self worth plummeted. It was a weird feeling to to see my teammates play without me. Many times I had to stop and simply cry because I felt so lonely, lost, and betrayed. How could something I dedicated my life to simply go on without me so easily, as if I was never there to begin with.

​When it came to sports, especially track, I was a bit of a late bloomer. Middle school was tough on me because I was the person that was good at anything that had to do with athletics in elementary school, but kids started to grow faster than I did and I was no longer the star I used to be. Two minor sports that this affected me in were soccer and basketball. I was no longer the soccer star at my school, but I was still one of the best so this was not that big a deal. Basketball was harder for me to cope with because I went from one of the best to B-team player. These were not my main sports and they were not as important to me so I will not focus on them. The biggest failure in my eyes was the inability to be the fastest kid in school. I

Growing up as a girl who hated dresses and skirts, I never would have thought that the sport I would fall in love with would require me to wear a kilt. I never had even heard of field hockey before sixth grade. My favorite sport growing up was basketball, so when I made the B team in sixth grade, I was beyond devastated. I felt like a failure and was embarrassed. I was on a completely opposite team from all the teammates I grew up playing with. I analyzed every play I did at tryouts, trying to think of what I could have possibly done wrong to make the evaluators think I was not good enough for the A team. I couldn’t think of anything I would have done incorrectly, but that didn’t distract me from feeling like a failure.

“PUSH THEM OUT!” I bellowed at the other people on defence as I charged the halfway line in the blazing heat. As the defensive captain it was my job to keep the defence in line and organised and just was generally in charge of them, only outruled by the coaches. I had just sprinted to stop an offensive attack from the other team and booted the ball up to the offence. I was giving this game 200% of my effort, even though this usually resulted in me coming close to passing out and being a wreck for the rest of the day, but this was the finals in the soccer tournament. It was also the day of my confirmation at church so I was already a bit exhausted. On Saturday we had won three of our games and tied one which was well enough to get us seeded first for the finals Sunday, but Sunday was here...

The summer before freshmen year, my older sister, Becca reserved gym time to teach me volleyball. I’ve been playing volleyball since 5th grade and watching her play since I can remember, and she was willing to get me ready to play at the high school. I played club since 5th grade and the club director knew my sister played in college and knowledgeable in the sport so he offered her gym time. She, being very compassionate, said yes and then talked to one of my former coaches, who she only met a couple of time, to ask for tips on how I learned best. When we arrived to the gym, it was completely empty. As I got my kneepads and ankle braces on, all of my former club memories came flooding back to me. We worked on my serving to help keep my form so

Playing on the varsity volleyball team is an adrenaline rush like no other. To be able to play the sport you love with teammates that are like family, in front of a crowd of actual family members is the ultimate feeling. Playing is even better when you, a small town nobody, beat a ranked team in the first set. We had just beaten Humboldt 25-17 and I was on top of the world. We were playing like our lives depended on it and I couldn’t be more proud of the girls.

I first started playing volleyball at a very young age. I was in the seventh grade when my volleyball career started. My sister started playing in the seventh grade and I just wanted to follow her footsteps. My seventh grade year was ok because I had just started out and really didn’t know the game. There was A team and a B team, where A team was better than the B team. I tried my best to be on the A-team, but guess where I ended up, on the B team.

I know that even though my label comes with negative thoughts I know that I will never be ashamed for loving to play volleyball. Hearing people say things to make darkness override just makes me want to work harder and prove them wrong. Enjoying something that makes you feel like you belong should never make you switch your light because you will always make up to a new bright