When I Was Forced To Quit College

I have not and will never forget those series of events. This time hurt me but also helped build upon my character. It was my freshman year of high school. I had decided to play soccer, which was not a hard decision for me since I had played travel soccer pretty much my whole life. Also my brother was in high school at the time and played for the boys soccer team, and had my dad as his coach. He loved it and was having a great experience playing high school soccer so of course I like to follow in my brother’s footsteps. I was very nervous at first. There were over eleven seniors on the team, and they were pretty intimidating to me. During the summer, I played with the varsity often and enjoyed it. As I kept playing with them and performing well, my nerves lessened. Finally when the actual season rolled around, I was put on full varsity. All my hard work had paid off. I was one of the two freshman put on varsity. I was ecstatic. I was actually very lucky at getting put on varsity because at this point in my life I played purely out of natural talent. I was never one to put in extra work outside of practice and be disciplined in the way I lived my life. I never really strived to be the best I could be. Making varsity made me somewhat of a threat for the older girls. Some were happy for me, others did not like the thought of a freshman on varsity. These girls were hard coore they were bound and determined to make it to state that year. They were not going to accept anything less than amazing. This put an incredible amount of pressure on us younger girls. I remember going to every practice nervous that I was going to mess up and they get mad at me. I never really felt at ease with them. In the first few games I got good playing time. I was doing really well. I was finally getting comfortable out there on the field, but that was not the direction God was taking me and with one swift kick of the soccer

One of the hardest times in my life is when I did not make the final cut in basketball during my sophomore year. At the time basketball was the thing in my life I was most focused on. There was not much else at the time that I enjoyed doing except playing basketball. So, not being on the team anymore was a real and honest struggle.

I was on the little pee wee team called the Panthers. I was only 10 years old when I first started playing for the team. At first when joining the team I was doubtful on whether or not I would be good enough to play. That moment when Coach Smith called my name I knew it was time. During that first game we were playing against the Cubs. I was wearing number 95. Then all of a sudden I found myself at the line of defense; shaking full of nerves. This was my first time on the field with a team; a team that had my back and knew that I had theirs. My family came out to my game to support me. At first that was all I could focus on was them shouting my name. I had to focus, I hit my helmet to get myself in the zone; I had seen the professional football players do that on TV so I took a chance and tried it out. I was bent over, mouth guard in, and saliva dripping out, I even growled to

It was early October in my 5th grade year when Mr. Uptmor came to my school. Mr. Uptmor was a teacher at Oak Grove West and he was the girl’s basketball coach. He came to Oak Grove East to talk to us about trying out for the team. I had been playing since I was little, so immediately I knew I wanted to tryout. He told us all about times, dates, and skills he thought it would be beneficial for us to have. I took a flyer and after school showed it to my mom. She told me that only practicing would help me make the team and that I should talk to my sister and ask her to help me. My sister and I practiced everyday after school up until the point of the tryout.

We had basketball tryouts on october 31st and i was doggin them folks on the court they couldn’t handle me and i was just a little 9th grader and they were all 11th and 12th graders they must have felt bad but i know they didn’t because i used to play against them all the time in practice so they already knew what it was. I was 6’3 and JJ was 6’4 by the time we were 9th graders and we made varsity when we picked our jerseys i picked my dads old number because i always wanted to be different from him but htis year i had to honor him by wearing his number the number is 1. We had our first practice and i kinda started to tear up a little bit because i know my dad would be proud of the man i became and the ball player i became he always said i will be better than he ever was just because of the passion i had for the game and the little smile i had every time a ball was in my hands. Practices kept going on and on and me and JJ earned the starting spots on the team we were getting very popular amongst the student body. The first game came up and as always me and JJ weren’t scared we were ecstatic to play against better competition and show the world what we can really

Me and my friend walked into the volleyball courts and we all tense. When all 70 of us girls were playing there were coached walking around with clipboards and examining us. We all tried very hard for the four days that tryouts were and we were all glad that tryouts were over. At school we were all checking the website for the teams because we were all so anxious to know what the teams were going to be.

In 6th, 7th, and 8th grades, I tried out for the school basketball team. I did not make the team any of the 3 years I tried out. Basketball is not my best sport. I wouldn’t consider myself bad at it, but I wouldn’t consider myself to be a highly skilled player. In 6th grade, my math teacher told me about a mentoring program at the school. I was sitting in class right as the bell rang. My teacher asked me to stay after class. I was nervous, and was shaking like a tree branch in the wind. My stomach dropped. When everyone left the classroom, my teacher said, “Please go to Ms. Logsdon’s (our social worker) office for a quick meeting.” When I got to Logsdon’s room, five other kids were already there waiting. We had no idea what was going on. We were very nervous to be there - like person singing for the first time in front of a live audience. Finally, Ms Logsdon said, ”You have been nominated by teachers to be part of a leadership program called TRY.” This was a turning point for me. I was very excited inside, but

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.

one experience I had was when I won MVP basketball team. it was one of my giggest goals because I love basketball and I wanted to bring a trophy home. I had a lot of good players on my team, so I knew it wasn't going to be easy. The other kids on my team had many years of experience in playing basketball and it was barely my second

One of the highlights of my seventh grade school year is that I played basketball. At the beginning of seventh grade I was able to play school basketball. I had an awesome time playing basketball and sharing the experience with my friends. I am kind of sad that basketball ended but we had a good season. Although I liked playing basketball and hanging out with my friends I decided that I will not be playing basketball next year. Another highlight of my year was when we got

I have played sports my whole life. I specifically like basketball though. When I was in 8th grade, I tried out for a basketball team. I ended up not making the team, this woke me up. I realized if I wanted to play competitive basketball for a long time, I knew I had to get down to business because high school was just around the corner. I signed up for several camps, and worked really hard on my game the whole summer and before the tryout. Then tryout came around, and I was so nervous. On the 2nd tryout day, I was chasing someone down the court. When he went up I ended up blocking it, and while I was in the air, he tried to kick me. He missed and got under my foot. My foot opened up, and I had a sprained foot. I was so mad, I didn’t want

That is when I made the decision to let my childhood sport and dream go to focus on what I was excelling in and had potential to do well in. The following year, my junior year, I focused on softball all year and I did very well and had a lot of fun. Towards the end of the year all of a sudden big news came in. Our basketball coach was leaving and we were getting a new one the following year, my senior year. Immediately thoughts start swirling through my head and I start contemplating whether I should give basketball a try again since it is my last year. After a long summer of thinking I decided I should play. The first few weeks were tough catching up, it was a lot of hard working to clinch a varsity spot. After I made varsity I felt a little more relieved but I knew I had to continue to work hard. As the season began, my shots began to start falling very well but my ball handling skills definitely lacked from taking a year off. I worked to improve them but that first impression at the beginning of the season set me back a

In the summer after 6th grade I was playing on an aau basketball team based out of Mason City. The team had tryouts and there were about 30 kids that tried out, so I knew that there would be two teams. I waited patiently for a couple of days and I learned that I made the elite team. I was really excited to travel around the midwest and play basketball all summer! I thought I was a really good player locally but never had seen the amount of other good players just in the midwest.

The first sports I did was football.I was put on the C team and did not really try in football just showed up to practice and goofed around not really putting much effort into the sport. football season was over the next was basketball in the which you had to try out for. just like football I came in to try out goofing around not putting much effort into the sport and just hoping I would make the team . on that Friday the week of tryouts the list was posted so that the players could see who made the team, sadly my name was not up there but every single

I first broke my finger when I received a pass playing basketball. I injured my knees for the first time because of basketball. I heard unpleasant comments about myself for the first time during a basketball game. I was 12. I gave up. I hated basketball. But I could never imagine that after a few years I would lead my high-school basketball team as its captain.