Personal Narrative: A Career As A Lacrosse Player

The heat bears down on me, as I feel my skin burning in the hot summer sun. Dust and dirt floats around the air and a thin layer of grime covers my entire body. Sweat drips around my goggles while adrenaline fills my body and my heart races. In the middle of nowhere in Virginia, I feel at home, I feel the turf under my cleats and the cool metal of the stick in my hands. As the timer ticks down, the buzzer rings, and the game begins. I look to my left and see my dad sitting on the sideline, ready to cheer as loud as possible. To my right I find my teammates, the most loyal group of friends I have, ecstatic about the potential of winning.

My Freshman year I played midfield for the JV Lacrosse team. Heading into my Sophomore season, I wanted to play Varsity and figured that if I worked hard enough during the off-season I’d be able to make the Varsity team. As tryouts approached, I felt I had trained and was ready to compete for a spot. Unfortunately, during the pre-tryout conditioning I became ill and was unable to practice for several weeks and missed the tryouts completely. I was not able to play Varsity as a Sophomore.

I wake up grab my lacrosse stick, ball and head outside. Grab the net and started to shoot. I play of my state lacrosse team we have our first tournament this weekend and I don’t wanna be the reason that we lose. I was originally a D-pole for my city team but my coach for state thought otherwise. I could run the field in 20 seconds flat. At least that is what my coach said. I started out the day with a couple fakes and spin moves nothing hard just the kind of stuff you need to know when you want to start. My sister decides to come and play me in a 1v1 (me and my sister are competitive) I accept so we go to the plains across the street I bring the net along with us. I just school her badly 10:0 she challenged me at my own game 1st mistake.

The summer team consisted of tournament’s in the state of Florida, also one big trip to West Virginia. So this year to me was not the most important year to be the starting pitcher to me, because there were seniors looking for schools to also play for and coaches needed to give them a shot before lower classmen. So this year I started a couple games, I also closed a couple just as a sophomore. I wasn’t the best on the team, but I knew if I did my best and worked hard for next year I could be. After the summer team was over I felt good about where I stood skill level with everyone. So at the end of the summer my coach talked to me and asked me to go to a new school, he will be coaching at (Keswick Christian) so deciding where to go was almost

Bare with me for another blog post about volleyball. This weekend was the Badger Region Volleyball Tournament, which my team participated in. When I walked into the building, the memories flooded in with scenes from the elevator adventures, cheese fries, and design your own sweatshirts. The first day, my team didn't play up our full potential, with my team only winning one out of three matches; which meant that we didn't place in any of the brackets, meaning zero chance of receiving a medal. However, at the end of the second match, I got switched from being middle all-around to libero ( a position where you only play back row on offense and defense). I guess it's an honor, but it puts a lot of pressure on me by labeling me as the best passer

In track my junior year I wanted the great opportunity of going to invitationals, and even regionals. Then my coach took away that opportunity from me, by choosing my other teammates over me to go. I think my coach did this because he saw no potential in me as he did the others. I know I should’ve fought against his decisions, but instead I just kept quiet during the year because I didn’t want any problems. The situation never did improve as the season went on. Since I made the decision to keep quiet about it. Afterwards I actually improved myself, and found a better coach to help me for next season.

It was my sophomore year and my friend Lizabeth would tell me how great lacrosse is, and what an experience it can be. That’s when I tried out for the first time and I felt great so strong and confident. I imagine my skills from marching band would actually come in handy, boy was I wrong. So I didn’t make the team the first time and it kind of destroyed me. Then junior year rolled in and I was not planning to do anything that year. Suddenly, Lizabeth vociferate to me “can you try out again, for me

I am not an exceptional athlete. I never won a swim meet, scored a soccer goal or aced a tennis opponent. It took me 4 years, 3 stress fractures and endless pleading from friends and coaches to finally land my back handspring in order to make the competition cheerleading team. On a whim, after my friends convinced me that lacrosse was the ultimate game in town, I agreed to give it a shot. With little hand-eye coordination and a borrowed lacrosse stick, I ventured onto the field for the first time. After a few days of dropping every pass, suffering a few ball strikes to the head and breathlessly running around the turf, something unexpected happened. I caught a ball. At that moment, I resisted the urge to drop the borrowed stick and break

Throughout the years, I have practiced my stickwork, improved my mile time, and secured my spot in the starting lineup. As a senior, I play alongside several of the novices with whom I used to share a bench. Hearing the freshmen spur us on, I am reminded of myself. With the team that became my second family and the sport that became my passion, I have learned that you have to take chances sometimes. Lacrosse taught me the true value of hard work and

The season was going good I was playing my usual position and the coaches were being tough as usual. Then about halfway through the season, a parent coach started helping out. I knew from the start I didn’t like him. One practice I wasn't on my game I was already mad. I had to miss my cousin's birthday party that he was begging me to go to. At the beginning of practice the head coach approached me if I wanted to move to running back I kindly accepted the role. This lightened my mood a little and I

Me being one, if not the best d fender we have so naturally coach wants me out there to assure the victory which was not need since CHCA is very good, but that's because they're new to lacrosse this year. I get out on the field instead of a player that was new and did not know the speed of the A-team games so he was not doing very well. Soon as I got in there I got a ground ball which made boosted my confidence but soon after I got another gb (ground ball) and I took it down the field and the goalie stepped out of the goal to hit me and i spun out of the way put the head of the stick up high and ripped bottom corner and I felt so good but it was so hot so I had to take a breather so stepped out and I did not get a chance to get back in but that's ok can see the nervousness in my face and as the words finally creep out he

Our team was coming off an undefeated season and the JV team before us went 5-5 with the same coaches we were about to have. But I started the season with an open mind, hoping to again go undefeated. With Jack being my position coach, we spent a lot of time together and immediately a bond was formed. His coaching philosophy was always to be a friend not a parent, to teach not to yell and I took this to heart. The feeling I was being respected and not treated like a stereotypical teenager was eye opening to me. I was able to have full conversations with Coach Jack as if he was a very wise friend of mine, which is the best way I can describe him. This taught me something valuable, you can have a conversation with anyone no matter the age as long as there is a mutual respect. Throughout the season Coach Jack treated me as a student of the game, a padawan if you will. He would always explain to me his thoughts about coaching and explain a play call to me to make sure I understood all the aspects. All of these explanations seemed to follow the same phrase, “When you become a coach...” At the time I didn’t know coaching was the career I wanted to pursue, but Coach Jack did. He saw in me love for the game and a passion to stay involved in the great game of football, even after my playing days were over. After one season on JV, both Coach Jack and I moved up to the varsity level my following year. For the third year in a row our team went undefeated in the regular season, though we stumbled in the semi-finals of playoffs and were knocked out of the championship race. All that loss did was fuel our fire for our final season. I however was not aware that I had already played my final season of football. Diving for a football in the beginning of my senior summer, I broke my wrist. One surgery and several months in a cast kept me sidelined from competing with my team. Although

My sophomore year I did not expect to be playing varsity until the coach came

In the years leading up to high school, I attended basketball camps, played on AAU travel teams, and practiced relentlessly to sharpen my skills. My ultimate goal was to earn a spot on my high school varsity basketball team. I was thrilled when I found out in my sophomore year that I was the only player to go straight from the freshman team to varsity. However, after the first week of practice, my coach extinguished my hopes of being

Every time I stepped on the court I gave everything I had and I did the best of my ability. First day of school senior year, I was excited to be on the last stretch of my high school career and I was more excited to have a volleyball scrimmage after school. We were scrimmaging the junior varsity and it was like a normal game with referees. We were going to play best three out of five, and we won the first set. During the game, I started in the front row and then rotated to the back row and got to serve. I am a middle hitter and I didn’t play back row unless I was serving. That is when everything went wrong. JV hit the ball back over and we shank it off, but I could still get it back into play if I went after it. I turn and start sprinting to the back wall trying to get to the shanked ball before it hits the ground.