Soccer: The Integral Part Of My Life

I was four years old when I started playing soccer, and at ten I knew I wanted to play in college. Soccer has been a huge part of my life for twelve years now, growing up I had always played defense and loved it. When eighth grade came around, my travel team needed a goalie, I decided to take one for the team and become our goalie for that season instead of playing my usual position. Playing goalie was never my first choice, but I knew that I had to do it if I wanted to play soccer that season, so I asked my brother to train me to become a goalie for that season. As it turned out, I wasn’t terrible at goalie and my dad suggested I switch from defense to goalie. I was hesitant to switch positions especially since high school was coming up the …show more content…
I was nervous about the training because most of the people who were there had played goalie for a very long time and I didn’t even know how to dive properly. I walked in and breathed in the familiar scent of turf and sweat, it made me feel better because I felt at home when I was playing soccer. We had jumped right into drills and the other goalies were making these amazing saves and doing crazy dives, I’ll admit I was a little intimidated. Finally the session was over, but the only thing I was felt was the burning sensation of the turf burn, then one of the coaches came up to me and asked to talk to me. He asked me how long I’d been playing goalie: one season. He asked me why the sudden change in positions, and I told him that I was decent in travel and my dad thought I could become a good goalie with some extra training. His last question was, “Do you want to play soccer in college?” my answer was obviously yes, it’s been a dream of mine to play college soccer since I was ten. He then told me since I started being a goalie so late in my career and because of my height, or lack there of, I would never play college soccer. At the time, I now felt two things, turf burn and defeat, that one sentence had completely crushed me. I looked at him with a fake smile, walked away, gathered my things and …show more content…
I ended up making varsity as a freshman, and was the starting goalie all season long. For the first time since the coach had told me I wasn’t good enough, I actually felt good enough. Even though I made varsity and was the starter, I knew my hard work couldn’t end there. I had to prove time and time again not only that I was the best goalie there, but also that I wanted to continue to be the best. I continued doing training sessions, and proved once again my sophomore year that I deserved the starting