Personal Narrative-Mysterious Soccer Team

I walked off the floor with sweat dripping from my hair. So many thoughts flew through my head that I couldn’t focus on anything. My junior year of basketball felt like it ended as quickly as a blink. It was as if in seconds we went from the stars of the state tournament to the embarrassments of it. I tried to forget the disappointment of it but it still will not leave. My desire and love to win games comes from the more apparent hatred of losing them. Junior year we had a chance to win a state championship, but we lost that chance. That was when I realized that I had one chance left to win. Senior year our basketball success would only be as rewarding as we would make it. The pressure placed on ourselves was substantial, and we faced trials on the road to success. In the end, we stood alone, crowned as the champions, not letting our chance slip away.

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.

I chose to play another year of recreational soccer, making sure to come back the next year to prove a point that I can put in the work and give myself the best opportunity to make the top team. Everyday after school, I would head to the fields and practice every aspect of my game. I would arrive an hour early to every practice, and I would leave an hour after practice. Day in and day out, I worked diligently on my fitness. For a year, I stopped at nothing to give myself the best chance I could to reach my goal. Motivated after that dissapointing tryout, nothing could stop me from doing my best. Standing on a different field, one year later, tryouts began. I was determine to produce my best performance. Two hours later, every player stood single file. Coincidentally, I was the first person called up; the coach informed me that I made the top team. However, this team played for a different club than the one I tried out for last year. This team competed at a much higher level. Not only did I make the team, but I gained the knowledge and appreciation for hard work and dedication. People rarely receive everything they want; however, they can always put in their best effort to provide themselves the best opportunity at obtaining what they

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

The next big milestone in soccer for me was when I was a freshman in high school. I went to Troy High and didn 't think I was good enough to play high school soccer. If it wasn’t for my best friend’s dad, I really wouldn 't have played. He told me that I would regret not playing and that I had a lot of potential. I decided to try out with my three best friends and we all ran and did exhausting fitness exercises for weeks during tryouts. First, we’d have to do five laps around the track. In the beginning of the season, those five laps are a killer. By the end of the second one, I am usually out of breath. After that, we’d get into groups and do stations, like jumping over bars or doing sit-ups and push-ups, basically anything to get us into shape. The third part of practice was sprinting. I like sprints because I am way better at running faster for one-hundred yards, than doing a long distance run. The next part of tryouts were the best, all the girls would get put into two teams and we’d just scrimmage so he could see our real soccer skills. Coach Haviland, who was the varsity coach, decided teams after the tough two weeks. He said I had a little maturing to do on the field and that I will be on varsity in no time. I was shocked! I didn 't even think he was considering me. I had a lot of fun with the Junior Varsity team and made lots of friends. By

I recall arriving at the first game. The opposing team, although small, were almost two times my size. They looked intimidating, but I did not let judgement cloud my mind. When huddled together, our coach spoke to us, telling the team that we is what we practiced for, that the other team did not practice as hard as we did, even though he had no knowledge of the opposing team’s practice was. As he continued to intensify our spirits, a fire sparked amongst my companions. The plays flourished throughout my brain. I felt confident. Before I knew it, a whistle blew and I was fast forwarded onto the field

Finally, the day of our first game had arrived. All of us had butterflies in our stomachs. It was the type of feeling you get when you know you are well prepared for something, but you inexplicably still feel nervous. As soon as the ball was kicked first, all of the anxious feelings I had melted away and the game became quite fun. Just as the prior years, the first game had the easiest opponent to beat and my team and I had no problem securing a victory against them. The second game was a bit more of a challenge, but defeating that team was nothing we were not prepared for. The true challenge came in the third and championship game. Although we enjoyed a bye game due to our two previous victories, the other team had the advantage of some truly God-gifted athletes. In particular, number seven was a beast of a thirteen-year-old. He stood at an impressive six feet tall and he towered over us on every snap. During the first drive, we had marched the ball down the field slowly but surely and on the four-yard line we fumbled. Of course, number seven picked up the ball and ran it back for a touchdown. At halftime, our coach sat us down and had a long talk with us. Even though we were discouraged by their touchdown, we picked ourselves up and started scoring. We scored two rushing touchdowns in the third quarter and one more in the fourth quarter to secure the win. Not only did we come back from a losing

I had gotten my first summer job where I was required to work at least 35 hours a week and with some of the money I saved up from my summer job I bought a regulation sized soccer net for my front yard. I worked seven hours everyday from 5:30am to 12:30pm and as soon as I got home I put on my cleats, grabbed a ball, and went outside to practice for about two hours. If it rained I either went to the local indoor soccer facility or in my garage. I found new moves on how to get around a defender from YouTube and I worked on them until they were perfect. Soccer tryouts were in the beginning of August and I felt more prepared than ever before. The coaches were a little surprised to see me because they thought I might have given up after being let down twice but this time was going to be different. I tried all the moves that the internet had taught me and I came in third for speed and agility testing. As I was leaving after the last day of tryouts my soccer coach stopped me to say he was proud of my work and that things were looking good for me being moved up. On the Monday after the results were supposed to be

The team was ready, we had been working extremely hard for the past seven months for this. We were all in great shape and very rested. A few of the returning players were meeting me at my house to carpool to the final game of the state championship tournament. Everyone knew that the hard work had paid off when we won the semi-final game the preceding day.

Our success had been given to us without much work. Our team was at least twice the size of all the other teams and we earned points left and right. It was never a concern of whether we would be standing on the top of the podium at the end of the meet - we knew that we would be there. Getting in the blocks before the gun went off was one of the most nerve wracking experiences. Everything goes quiet and you can hear the conversations among the people lining the fence, but somewhere below the nerves building in your stomach, there was always the knowledge that it was just a race. Myself and many others began to expect the victories and the thought of us not winning became comical. As year eight and nine rolled around, the competition became tough but we continued to hold the trophy at the end of the meet. If we had managed to persevere and come out on top for the last nine years, surely ten wouldn’t be any different, or so we thought. I spent my entire free time crunching the numbers, and in worst case scenario, we were still predicted to be standing on top of the podium with the trophy. But drive and determination cannot be calculated. We were no longer conference champions, we were no longer looking to extend our streak, and we were no longer looked at as the unbeatable team. Ten was a feat we could not

The atmosphere warming up was silent, you could hear a pin drop. The field was a perfect shade of green with a hint of dew on the tips of each piece of grass. Yesterday, my team AC Sandhills was defeated 7-0 in our first game of the 2012 Mother’s Day Tournament. There was no energy in anyone at the moment, including myself. We thought the next game would just be like the first, another blowout. We thought we were done in this tournament, but little did I know this would be the game where everything would change. My coach JR noticed that we were not ourselves in our warmup. So right before kickoff he gave us a speech about how to bounce back after a horrendous defeat. “When I was in college, we lost our first game of the season off of an own goal 1-0. You know what happened in the next game? We won, 4-0. Do you know how we won? Because we moved on. We focused on what we had to do in the next game and we forgot about the last one. That’s what I want you guys to do.” His motivational words filled me and the rest of my team with a hunger for victory.

My freshman year of high school Coach Specht was the assistant soccer coach, at tryouts he told me that I would have a bright future as a player and could possible play varsity as as a freshman. Throughout the year I keep putting in the time and finally half way through the season I got my chance to play my first varsity game. This

Playing soccer was one of the best moment in my life. So, I decided to put my all in the game of soccer, practice after practice made me perfect in the field of soccer, I developed my own skills and it helped since I was working very hard on the pitch. I always had that feeling that when it came to soccer I was the best no matter what. This feeling started when I realized that no matter how hard my team mates trained, they still could not match up with me. All was well with my soccer career until my seventh year in school when we had to play against a neighboring school. Being the best the player on my team, it came with a lot of responsibilities,

There stood the final score 27-21, Vikings have done it, they are going to the Championship, again.Steelers stood quiet on the sideline while their opposing team were jumping up and down all across the field yelling and screaming and hugging each other in joy.Then you had my team, the now beaten Steelers who had just blew their Championship chance all because of me. I was only a sixth grader then and I was only playing in a little league,but felt terrible not in the mad way like an angry bull charging a fire red cape but disappointed like as if you had a chance to save the world and you decided to stay watch TV. As I was presented with a third place medal I wondered if I even deserved it had I not of fumbled the ball I would have a cheering team and a golden trophy in my hand but no, I had a bronze medal hanging from my neck.So from that day forth I decided I wasnt ever going to stop playing football and practicing football until my body couldn’t take it anymore.

Following our final preseason game of tryouts, the bus was significantly quieter than usual. The ride from Masconomet High was nearly an hour, giving us time to contemplate our spots on the team; we all knew final cuts were coming. The tense feeling was noticeable looking at everyone’s eyes. To alleviate my worry, I focused on things unrelated to soccer, or, what I would do if I didn’t make the team. However, when the bus arrived back in Needham, I couldn’t think about anything but soccer. Everyone stepped off the bus and we all waited one by one along the brick wall to get called over.