Personal Narrative: The Sport Of Soccer

I played competitive soccer for a very long time, and right before one outdoor season, I got the news that I was dropping a level, and it shattered my heart. I thought I wasn’t good enough for the competitive team. When I showed up to the first practice, I thought to myself, ‘This is going to be a long season’. These girls couldn’t quite play like how I was used to; quick, intense, and losing wasn’t an option. I acted like I was better than them because I had played at a higher level for most of my life. I thought that if the coach would see how much of a better player I was, they would send me back up to the more competitive team. However with each practice and game, my frustration grew and I started yelling on the field, things like what to do, what we should have done, and if we messed up, I made it quite obvious that I was frustrated. I just really wanted to get back to my old team, that was my only goal. When my coach called me off of the field for a “substitution”, I was utterly confused. I was doing the best out there so shouldn’t I stay on? When I got off the field my coach sat me down and told me to smarten up and shut up or I wouldn’t be getting on the field again. He told me that he knows I played on a better team, but my attitude needed to improve because this was my

I had grown to know the coaches, my footwork had improved leaps and bounds compared to when I came into the program, and yet still I was nervous. I knew too many people were trying out for my position, one of us was going to be cut, and with two returning seniors there was two spots for three of us. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the one to pick. Maybe it was my size, my speed, my control of the ball, whatever it was, it just wasn’t good enough and on the last day of try outs, myself and three others were called over to have the news broken to us that there just wasn’t enough positions open. I was crushed.

The day was October 8th, 2014. I hardly played. One school day, my 5th teacher, Ms. Smit said, “flyers for the basketball team on the table” ordinarily I took one. Kids from 4th, 5th, and 6th grade came to try out for the team. After tryouts, a paper next to the nurse's office was hung up. The paper sheet named those who had made the team. Surprisingly, I made the team, most likely from my height. I felt like I shouldn’t have made the team. At the time, I barely started to play basketball. I went to the practices at school and tried to make myself a little bit better, since a tournament was about to begin in a few weeks.

I started the first few weeks wanting to impress the head coach to prove to him I deserved a spot within the starting nine on the varsity level. I practiced hard, never goofed off, and went to the cages with my dad on the weekends. I wanted to make the varsity level to show my family and myself that I could do it and that I was good enough to compete at the varsity high school softball level. When I was younger, I made the team I wanted, I never considered failing to be part of me. The big week came, the teams were posted all seven freshmen had made a team but yet to find which side of the paper their name

I was constantly looked down on, as through the practices, varsity players continuously knock me down and run me over. One varsity player named Jordan Zorbas hit me so hard I felt like a crash test dummy. Later in practices, the varsity roster was taped to the locker-room’s wall. I couldn’t place my name on the list, meaning that I was on the freshman team. I remember thinking,“ Why couldn’t I make it, “ but deep down I knew why. I began practicing with the freshman team at linebacker. September 7th we had our first game against Ida Baker high school. I remember making the first tackle of the game, with me wrapping the running back and stripping the ball from his meaty hands. Although I started the whole game, I was not satisfied with my performance and felt that I should’ve done

It is my junior year of high school and basketball season is right around the corner. I am on the verge of either making varsity or junior varsity this year depending upon my skills. Went through the tryouts and was able to make the junior varsity again for my second year with coach Maloney. I was all excited to play there again seeing I was one out of the three kids that made it back there again. From there it was Cam, Anthony, and I who thought would lead the team because we were the only ones who knew how to run Maloney’s offense and defense well that’s what I had thought was gonna be the case but in reality it wasn't. I thought I would be a starter for the team, but in reality I ended up being a bench player or how I thought of it as a

Growing up I had focused on competitive soccer. Soccer challenged me both physically and mentally and I learned to love these demands on the field. These challenges helped me foster a self-confidence in myself when it came to athletics. When I fractured my tibia playing against my rival high school, sending my knee cap into my thigh, I was faced with a new test. The sport that I loved was taken away from me for an extended period of time and it took away part of my identity. Who was I without soccer?

I didn’t think it was fair for a fifth grader to make varsity when she didn’t put in the effort, simply because her older sister was also on the team . I didn’t find it fair that we were placed on the lowest team and we tried as hard as them if not harder, we were as good as them, if not better, and we came to every single conditioning, practice, and meeting. Yes, I know I was given the option to leave if I felt this way, but I was determined to show them that I deserved to be right along with everyone else. Through tears, practices, games, extra workout sessions, additional batting cage time , and many arguments with my mom over the stress softball was causing me I was moved to freshman. I felt so accomplished, yet still unamused by the fact there were fifth graders dressing varsity. I don’t care to admit if someone is better than me but, they weren’t. Simply because they had siblings on the team or knew a coach personally they were placed on varsity. Fifth graders who came to about one week of conditioning moved up because of unfair circumstances, and in the end it created an unpleasant environment and negative energy over the

When I was eight years old, I played my first season of soccer. The real reason I played soccer was because my dad forced me to play. I loved to play all kinds of sports such as basketball, baseball and football but I was never interested in soccer. After my first practice I already realized soccer was not for me. I told my dad that I did not want to play anymore but he would not listen and made me keep going to practice. At my 3rd practice, the whole team was running laps and I tripped over a stick and fell down. My ankle was hurting pretty bad but I knew I was going to be fine. While I was lying on the ground, I thought to myself If I tell the coach and my dad that my ankle is hurt really bad than I won’t have to play anymore. I thought it was a genius idea at the time. I told them just that and it worked! I have no idea how my dad knew this but once I got home he knew that I was milking my injury. He told me something that night that I won’t ever forget. He told me “you didn’t just give up on yourself, you gave up on your team”. He called the coach the next day and told him that

Freshmen year I scored five goals and assisted more. After a season like that I was thrilled for sophomore year. Sophomore year came for me and things were not going the way I expected. My Dad moved to New York for work suddenly, making an impact in my life and I did not mesh with the Free State Varsity coach. I made Varsity sophomore year but did not have the passion or excitement I normally had. I used to love going to practice, and see my teammates. Instead practice would be a prison where all my flaws on and off the soccer field would be pointed out to my whole team by my coach. I became distant with the program and that showed in my playing. Freshmen year I scored five goals, sophomore year I only scored one. I did not like the varsity coach at all, and vise versa. We had different views on how the sport should be played and I respect my coaches but the decisions he made had me question him. I remember the first time I scored a goal on varsity looking over thinking my coach would be happy for me. Instead he sat slumped over with hands on his face looking ashamed and took me out immediately, not saying what I did. After that encounter with him I decided I would not play for a coach like that and went back to running

In 8th grade, I was selected to play on the varsity soccer team. We didn’t have the best team, and back then, I thought I was the best player on the team since I have been playing all my life. I tried winning games by myself by not passing the ball very often. Several of the people on the team, have never played soccer before. We only won three games and didn’t make the tournament. I thought the whole entire Summer on how we could win the championship. I wanted to win more than anything because I’ve been playing for 10 years and I’ve never won a championship. The next season came, and I was more ready than ever. I worked so hard and made sure all my teammates got involved because I started to notice that the team as a whole was playing better.

I was not old enough to drive and would have my mom pick me up every day after school didn’t want to take too long since my mom didn’t like when I took too long. In order to try to stay on time, I took my shoes over to where they three of them were standing and started putting them on. From the looks on their faces, something wasn’t right and they didn’t utter a word until the last girl left the room. They then began to tell us that they do not want us to perform at the basketball game with the team because we were not ready. They believed we were “inconsistent with our routines” in practice and didn’t feel we would be ready for the game. Rachel proposed they would revisit the idea of us performing on Friday if we can get the second half of the dance down perfectly for the assembly but at the moment we were not going to be joining the team. When, they asked for us to stay back, I didn’t think they would deliver this kind of news to us. I tried my best to keep myself from breaking down even though I could feel my eyes burning from tears. I couldn’t speak a word and just nodded along with them. Before they let us go, Renee asked us our opinions on the situation. In my head, I wanted to tell them it wasn’t fair to pull two girls from the team performance. But all I could say was that it was okay and that i

I was 15 at the time and was in my sophomore year of high school. Our boys varsity soccer team was having a terrific season. We were hoping to make a run for state, which had not been done in my high school’s history. I did not have much playing time while I was on the varsity team. With this said, I am going to share some background to my position on the varsity team. I first had to prove to the coaches that I would be an asset to the varsity team. I stepped up my intensity during the jv games. I was getting noticed by the varsity coaches and soon was asked to join the varsity practices. This was a great accomplishment for me as some of my teammates were chosen sooner to join varsity practices. Once I started practices, I tried veracity

Then, sophomore year came. In August, I was sitting on my older sister’s desk with her creasing and creaking black chair. I was borrowing her mac and I checked the Park Center’s website to see when the soccer meeting was. I made sure I went to the meeting so I could play. The meeting was on a Sunday and I went with my mom. I received the schedule and looked to see when tryouts were. It was the first tryout day, I was pretty nervous because I haven 't played soccer in a long time. My dad dropped me off and I was late. I notice that I didn 't have any soccer equipment. I went to the coaches on the field and received my tryout number. The players that helped me were very kind and they ran with me again, even though they already ran. We did stretches and I didn 't know any of the stretches and tried to look like I did. When we were finished, I looked around and I didn 't see anybody that I knew. Our next warm-up was passing drills, and I did not know what to do, I was like a lost puppy searching for it’s mother. Two days later, it was the third and the last tryout day. The coaches split us into three groups. Once everyone all got into the

Over thanksgiving break I went to the turkey bowl and my team came in second place.The turkey bowl was on weekdays at the high school, our first game was at 10 am and we won our first game 24-10. But our second game we lost in OT 12-6. After our second game we had a 2 hour break 5o go anywhere I went to tony’s pizza with my friends. But most of the calls for the game where Controversial. When we got back to the field we still had a lot of time so we had a football game and we watch the amilim games. IT was finnlay our time to play we played the green team and that's the team that beat us the first time. The first play of the game, i got the ball and scurry ran down the field for a touchdown. Our game went really fast but we came back at the