“I hate soccer!”, Jim yelled.
Jim stood in the dugout alone with his arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed, focusing on the ground. Being Jim’s partner for the my high school’s Special Olympics program, I ran over and convinced him to come play soccer with us for just five minutes, promising that we would do something that he wanted to do later.
I led the practice along with five other soccer players, practicing as a team with eight of the special education students at our high school. Each of us had a partner, and I happened to be paired up with Jim. Jim was 28 years old, and he always wore Harry Potter-style glasses and carried a Harry Potter backpack as a testament to his favorite movie. We instantly bonded with each other, always talking about movies and superheroes. Jim loved to laugh and tell jokes to us while we played soccer. However, he often would forget to tell the punch line to the joke, but the way he boldly told the joke with so much passion never failed to put a smile on everyone’s face.
Although Jim was often the life of the party at practices, he had a tendency to be difficult at times. Since I had experience with Special Olympics, the coach trusted me. Oftentimes, Jim would tell me that he didn’t like soccer and that he wanted to play other sports like hockey or baseball. I soon realized that …show more content…
He even began sitting with the soccer team at lunch, where he fit in much better than outsiders may have expected. There’s something about the honesty in their emotions that draws me to the students and the program itself, and all the while I get to teach the sport that I’ve been playing since the age of three. As I passed out the medals at the season concluding tournament, I realised the impact I had on these student’s lives and how far they had come from the first day of practice. Nevertheless, the way the program sculpted my friends and I into caring leaders inspired me to keep coming back to Special
Jim stood in the dugout alone with his arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed, focusing on the ground. Being Jim’s partner for the my high school’s Special Olympics program, I ran over and convinced him to come play soccer with us for just five minutes, promising that we would do something that he wanted to do later.
I led the practice along with five other soccer players, practicing as a team with eight of the special education students at our high school. Each of us had a partner, and I happened to be paired up with Jim. Jim was 28 years old, and he always wore Harry Potter-style glasses and carried a Harry Potter backpack as a testament to his favorite movie. We instantly bonded with each other, always talking about movies and superheroes. Jim loved to laugh and tell jokes to us while we played soccer. However, he often would forget to tell the punch line to the joke, but the way he boldly told the joke with so much passion never failed to put a smile on everyone’s face.
Although Jim was often the life of the party at practices, he had a tendency to be difficult at times. Since I had experience with Special Olympics, the coach trusted me. Oftentimes, Jim would tell me that he didn’t like soccer and that he wanted to play other sports like hockey or baseball. I soon realized that …show more content…
He even began sitting with the soccer team at lunch, where he fit in much better than outsiders may have expected. There’s something about the honesty in their emotions that draws me to the students and the program itself, and all the while I get to teach the sport that I’ve been playing since the age of three. As I passed out the medals at the season concluding tournament, I realised the impact I had on these student’s lives and how far they had come from the first day of practice. Nevertheless, the way the program sculpted my friends and I into caring leaders inspired me to keep coming back to Special