Personal Narrative: How Football Changed My Life

High school is a time of growth, knowledge, and taking advantage of opportunities given to you. Many students go through their high school experiences basing their decisions on societal expectations and status and peer pressure. I chose to take a different approach to the experience and challenged the belief of society's routine high school experience. The choices I made and the changes I retained helped me to establish and expand my individuality.

As said by head coach Nick Saban, “When you invest your time, you make a goal and a decision of something that you want to accomplish. Whether it's making good grades in school, be a good athlete, be a good person…”. Everyone in their lives has an event that either changes them in a positive or negative way. The event that changed my life drastically, was playing football.

From gaming to the field be sure to always be on my team, I'm not afraid to lead us to victory and push you to your full potential. If you know me at all you would know I'm a team player just look at what I play. I play sports that involve a team not just myself. I love being team leader but I’m always ok if someone else wants to be in charge. Who I am is someone who isn’t afraid to lead but won't support the next guy to lead because I want to strive to make the greatness show in others.

Once when I was in 4th grade, I decided I wanted to play football. By that time the season was already over, so I joined the team the next year. It was my first year and my coach said that I had a lot of potential. He said I had more than he’s seen in a long time of coaching.

When I was in middle school my mom always encouraged me to work my hardest

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.

I’ve been playing soccer a long time, longer than i remember. My dad says i've played since I was four. Despite that, as a freshman in highschool I still wasn't very good. id simply drifted through ten years worth of summer and fall leagues, only picking up enough skill to become the captain of my school's C team.

When i was 9 years old i had some friends at my apartment complex and we would climb this wall to get onto a street and we were bored and we climed it one day at had the bright idea to just jump off into a bush and so we did it and i twisted my ankle.I had some friends by the age of 10 who were older than me and we were walking around in the southlands mall and we walked passed a mattress store and i was dared to go in there and jump on all the beds and fall asleep i did it and got in trouble.Later that day we walked to safeway and bought some stuff them messed around i chucked a football across the illes and we ran back to my old elementary school and of my friends had a date come by and i got bored so i saw some kids playing football so i

I was still very nervous my hands were shaking, my stomach was twisted because 27 people were trying out for the team and only 17 can be on the team, but no pain no game. I was also nervous because I didn't know what my dad and cousin would think. I didn't want to let them down and make them upset because I wasn't trying out for soccer which has been their favorite sport for almost their whole life, I knew they loved it. Then on the first day of try outs, I felt like I did pretty good. I tried my hardest and did the best of my ability. To be honest, I literally worked my behind off. I was so tired and sweaty, I felt like I was a pool of sweat on one of the first days of tryouts. After tryout week, I found out I made the team with a few of my new but good friends. I was so glad I jumped straight into the air when I found out I made the team, I couldn't believe it, I was that

One of the things that makes me the happiest in life is football. I have been fascinated by the game ever since I was a kid. I remember playing catch with my dad every day during the summer. Me, my dad, and my brothers would play catch all day long. Literally from when we woke up until we had to go inside and eat dinner. It was the greatest time of my life.

As the ball is spinning through the air on that frigid, airy night, it’s like a momentary pause as we all wait for it to drop. As the ball comes down, I go up and just as I believe I have won the ball; I am knocked down and out. Everyone has an impactful moment in their life. Mine just happened to be an actual impact. An impact to my head that also just happened to have a bigger impact on my life than I ever could have imagined, probably because I don’t remember much from that day.

The changes I am going to do this year is keep grinding, no matter what and put in work this year. A change I really wanna do is not talk so much and get away from friends that are not doing good things and stick with friends that are in the same path as me. Another change is paying, more attention in class and when I need help go after school and get it. The one I really want to change is not to be so mean to people and just be helpful to other. Not to get mad, I so easy. I have to control my anger. The other new change is not to be so lazy and start doing what i gotta do and stop overthinking stuff. I also want to the way I play football because I want to play better and just be the best player out there. How am I going to do this, i’m going

The horrifying sound of my helmet crashing into the pavement still lingers in my mind. Traumatized from the pain and embarrassment of this experience. Only causes me to struggle daily with this constant memory, as voices filled with laughter snickered around my cloudy head. My teammate stepped over me. My lungs were gripped and suppressed by a force of affliction. As I gasped for air in agony. I was humiliated in front of the whole football team. The feeling was overwhelming, as an ant in a world that spared no mercy. On the ground, anger consumed my heart and body. “I regret ever learning how to play football!”, with the team screaming, I built up the courage to get up. I could feel my scorching red blood drip down my arm as the pain intensified. On round two, running with the ball in the routine without hesitation, fear was my friend. As the goal was to lay down and glunged at my teammate with all the strength left in my broken body. Charging against him with my eyes closed knowing the results would remain the same. Just to prove to my coach my fearless commitment to the challenge before me. “Clash!” “Oh yeah I like that Omar, next” was what my coach said. It was one of the greatest feelings as an adrenaline of excitement rush through my blood. This was just the start of my journey on learning how to play football. There were many adjustments to be made in order to have a starting position on the football team.

Most people view failure as a mistake and respond poorly by putting themselves down and giving up. In reality failure is a life lesson that can help you make your life better in the future. In the past, I have experienced failure in soccer by not making the starting varsity team in my junior year. I was very eager for the high school season to start and the chance to play soccer at the varsity level. After a long week of excruciating tryouts the head coach told me I would not have much playing time on the varsity team but he gave me the option of playing as a starter on junior varsity. When I was given the news I was disappointed to hear that my other friends were offered positions on the varsity team and I was not. After thinking about the situation, I decided that I would rather work hard and develop my skills with the varsity squad during practices. While, I was not looking forward to riding the bench for the season, I felt that the higher level of competition in practice would give me the opportunity to be a better player in my senior year. I also felt that I had positive assets and skills to offer the varsity squad as a fellow teammate. Some of the assets that I

At the start of my junior year of McNeil High School I was put in the varsity class for one month. I would train with the returning varsity players and learn from the varsity coach. Ever since my freshman year of high school, I dreamed about becoming a varsity player and now had the opportunity to make it. However, at the end of that month I had received news that I did not have the capability to become a varsity player and was moved down to junior varsity. This was probably one of the toughest setbacks that I had ever faced in my life. I started to question my own ability because I practiced regularly like any normal varsity player, but I never had an edge over anyone. From that point forward I was determined to become an entirely new player so that the coaches would have no doubt that I was good enough to be on varsity.