Soccer Scholarship

Ever since I could remember, soccer had been in my life. If there was a soccer team that needed a coach, my father was always the first to volunteer. There were almost too many strenuous weekends spent hours away from home for soccer tournaments to count. My entire family, consisting of my parents, my siblings, my dog, and myself, packed in a mini-van heading to a city that I had never heard of for soccer games. But when I entered high school, all that would soon go away. I kept playing the same sport that I always had, although now I had to wake up at five in the morning for six hours of high school soccer practice in the smoldering summer heat in order to make the high school team. High School sports were more competitive than anything I had done before. I put in as much effort as I could to make the Varsity High School team, staying out past dinner to practice even longer. I was utterly divulged in soccer and trying to be the best I could be. Soon, I would regret placing a game over spending time with my family.

Everyone has that certain thing that makes them who they are. That certain thing for me is soccer. It’s my hobby, my biggest interest, and my passion. Soccer isn’t just a sport for me, it’s my life. It has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I have played the intriguing game of soccer since I was four years old, and I have loved it ever since.

Have you ever felt pain so bad, but you push through it and ignore it ? Have ever wanted to help out your team but couldn’t ? Well I have experienced both it’s a terrible feeling and in my eyes it’s considered a failure to let down your team. How, I let down my team and myself is quite simple and here is how I hurt my knee, but first i'm going to tell you a little about soccer, why I played it, and then i'm going to explain how I hurt it and how it’s a failure to me and how did it affect me.

Growing up in a Hispanic household my family’s culture has had a significant impact in my life from avoiding a different variety of salsas and thinking twice about my immature decisions. Yet their love for the beautiful game known as Fútbol or soccer has always held on to me and is inspiring how it brings together an entire world or in this case my fanatic family. With soccer in my blood, as many relatives love to think, I’ve grown to love the sport, but my love was limited by restrictions. With an un-financially stable high school placing soccer in the bottom of the list of funds, my love for the game only stretched to amateur pickup games and watching ninety minute games on FOX Deportes. With limitations affecting my passion I began to follow

Athletics has played an instrumental role promoting success in all branches of life impacting my performance in school, work and other life facets. Involvement in athletics taught me the value of commitment allowing me to play in Division 1 Women’s Soccer while attending the University of Washington. As a former student athlete, I have been winning and losing my entire life developing my own resilience and tremendous work ethic to work with others toward a common goal. My drive spills over into my professional interactions and career aspirations allowing me to connect

Growing up, sports never seemed to be my expertise. Dancing my youth away, I never imagined to show passion for such an intrusive contact sport. My friends continued to nag at me saying “You have to try out for the soccer team.” My first year of middle school I stepped out onto the field. Occasionally forgetting to breathe,I focused right on the ball. I started to think to myself that I could get used to this. I mean how bad could it be? What I didn’t realize was I did not have much soccer skills under my belt, but making the team already was an accomplishment. I respected the captains when they talked, and I tried, day after day, to pick up the skills they possessed.

Every student athlete dreams of playing the sport they love in their future, whether it is in college or even to go play as a professional. I have played other sports in my life, but soccer has always been my favorite sport. I decided to drop every other sport I was in to play soccer. It was a pretty hard decision because I really did like playing other sports, but I really wanted

Over the years, playing soccer has taught me what it takes to succeed. From months of tough practices, I have gained a hard work ethic. From my coaches and fellow teammates, I have learned to work well with others in a group, as it is necessary to cooperate with teammates on the playing field. But most important, I have also gained self-confidence. If I fail, it doesn't' t matter if they mock or ridicule me; I will simply try again and do it better. I realize that it is necessary to risk failure in order to gain success. The

Constant running and never ending judgement from those around me. Yet, this did not make me stop. I challenged my teammates and coaches belief that I could not play and quickly became one of the most used players on the team. I nearly made the varsity team and started several games on Junior Varsity. I played amongst those who doubted me and became one of them. I became a soccer player, I learned to lead those around me, adapt to an environment I had yet to encounter, and how to change people’s opinion about me. It was the proudest moment of my adolescent life when the coach said an amazing heartfelt speech about how I would challenge both him and myself everyday at practice because I wanted to prove to those surrounding me I deserved to be playing on the pitch amongst them. The decision I made to go out for a sport I had never played my junior year of high school is by far the turning point of my life, I truly believe it changed me and gave me another dimension to my complex personality. I gave me an experience unlike that of any other person because I am not a natural athlete, I am just a child who has been doubted but has destroyed that doubt over and over

Although life is overbooked and filled with stressors, I can relax and enjoy playing soccer. Wearing the colors and badge of the team I’m on is something I hold with pride, and I work to play well while representing my team. At the same time, I train and work hard to excel and reach higher levels of competitive soccer. Even with the constant ups and downs and quiet car-rides when we lose, my passion for the game still tends to bring me back to the game and take my mind off of all my cares. Many a time I would sit and want to quit, but all the adversity and strong work ethic shapes who I am today. Through all my experiences, soccer is one of my favorite things to do and a passion I fully enjoy. Playing in the high-intensity travel and school games, plus coaching of my little brother’s team all are activities I love.

“McClure, you are a waste of oxygen and life”, my verbally abusive coach spit from him flaming mouth one last time as I walked out of his office. I was numb, and in shock, but relaxed, oddly feeling at peace with myself and my decision. Soccer had brought so much confidence, passion, work ethic, and pure joy to my life, it was something so stable and rewarding for 15 years. 15 years of endless passion enwrapped in pain and sweat, accompanied by life lessons I could not have gone on without, yet within 2 years, this wonderful aspect of my existence collapsed.

My dream of once becoming a college soccer player or even having college paid for by soccer is no more. Which made me realize that soccer is not everything, luckily

I want to be a surgeon, which will require me to take intensive science courses. My desire to work in the health field was solidified after I went to the 2015 Congress of Future Medical Leaders. At the congress, I met people like Sir Richard Roberts, the winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology, Robert Darling, Bill Clinton’s personal physician, and Jack Andraka, a boy who created a method for detecting early stages of pancreatic cancer when he was my age. I was inspired by their speeches and the fact that they were once my age; it made my dream to be a surgeon seem much more realistic and attainable. I even had a personal conversation with Mr. Darling, who told me that all I needed in order to reach my dream is tenacity. The most inspiring speech, however, was given by a woman named Carmen Tarleton. She suffered a brutal attack in which her face was doused in industrial grade lye, and she was reduced to becoming a living corpse. However, a group of surgeons gave her a full face transplant and she is now a force to be reckoned with. I knew, at that moment, that I wanted to help people like her, and that scientific progress is the reason she is still

Mr. Vital told us how he went from wanting to be a professional soccer play to becoming a successful head coach at the college level, that gave me insight into how life can really work. He had the goal from a young age but along the way he found himself in a position in which he felt comfortable and thought would help him out in the long run. I started my journey at the age of thirteen at a local baseball park on the sole journey of enhancing my ability to speak Spanish but in my five years at the park, I found areas in which I excelled at and that put me on the path that I am on now. The whole track of my life is now in motion for now on a track to end in the major leagues but after listening to Mr. Vital he made me open up my mind that our futures aren’t completely set and we need to experience the things that will help me broaden my horizons. He came from a background where he was told not to pursue the dream of

I dance to convert my thoughts into actions, and now I write to express my thoughts without hesitation. It was not always this effortless. As a teenager, I played soccer to transform my parent’s dreams into reality. However, these dreams dissipated like smoke into the air once I was benched every game for two years as a member of the junior varsity soccer team in high school. Although my parent’s joy seemed to radiate, my shame manufactured notions that seemed to only blacken. Even though I feared revealing the truth, I could not continue down this unhappy path any longer. Upon the conclusion of the season my sophomore year, I managed to teach myself something vital— I needed to put on my oxygen mask first.