Personal Narrative: Union Girls Varsity Soccer Team

In the fall semester of my freshman year in high school I had decided to try out for my school’s drill team, the Crimson Cadettes. This organization has a reputation of very classy, well put together young women and by being on the team, one automatically has extremely high standards that they are expected to meet. Being a Cadette is a big deal because it requires an abundance of hard work and is very time consuming. My teammates and I are often spending our extra time at school whether it be for practice, pep rallies, contests or even more. There are on average about sixty dancers on the team each year and because we spend so much time together, it is expected that sometimes we’ll disagree on some things.

In a flash, the referee blows his whistle, and the game is over. Legs striding, I chase after the ball, stealing it from the other team. Amidst the excitement, I lose track of time, and minutes go by in seconds. I started playing soccer when I was 7 years old. For as long as I can remember I have loved to play soccer. When I play soccer I forget about all my worries. Since then I have played for many different recreational teams for Verdigris and Catoosa. I have also played for a competitive soccer team for West Side Alliance. Today, I play for Verdigris High School soccer. I have played for their junior varsity team for two years as the captain and the junior varsity player of the year. I have also played for the varsity team.

Yet my apprehension prevailed as I continued to fear getting put in the game in case another player was injured. I was still afraid of making mistakes and getting blamed by screaming coaches and angry teammates. Sometimes these fears came true. During my sophomore season, my position led me to play in the varsity games on many occasions. On such occasions, I often made mistakes. Most of the time the mistakes were not significant; they rarely changed the outcome of a play. Yet I received a thorough verbal lashing at practice for the mistakes I had made. These occurrences only compounded my fears of playing. However, I did not always make mistakes. Sometimes I made great plays, for which I was congratulated. Now, as I dawn on my senior year of soccer, I feel like a changed person.

Ever since I was seven years old playing t-ball I dreamed of playing high school softball. Every year I waited not so patiently for the season to start. My junior year in high school I was the second basemen for my school softball team. That year my team and I were more determined than ever to get our team to the state finals. Before the state tournament we had to win conference, sectionals, and super sectionals. My junior year my team and I had our hearts set on being the first team in Somonauk history to ever win to the state championship.

In my life I feel like I've been very successful, whether I was playing sports or working hard for school. When I regress to my glory days during middle school, I feel very euphoric, almost as if I was boasting to a group of my friends. I look back and see myself as if I was practically infallible. I remember how my attendance was merely perfect up until the first time I had gotten strep throat at the end of my 7th grade year.Or how my pop warner football team went 9-0 for the season, winning the championships of the Big Island.

Last year I went to a different high school and I was part of the Junior Varsity soccer team. It was my second year playing for the team and I was elected to be the team Captain by most of my teammates and even the coach. I was chosen to be captain on a practice before our first game, I told myself that I will lead my team to victory and win all of our games to take the B.V.A.L title for J.V. We ended up winning our first game but it was hard because we had no communication on the field. Since I was captain I was doing all of the screaming instead of the coach. One thing that I found out after that game was that I should have been easier on the guys and tell them to do their job instead of yelling at them. So after that game during our practice

Ever since I was able to walk I have participated in sports from cheerleading, soccer, track, and etc. I remember after cheerleading practice, my friend and I would join the boys in a game of football. We were decent in football, but I felt we would have been better if we were part of the team. We wanted to drop cheerleading and join the football team, but there would be controversy within the community. Growing up I always wondered why there was a men’s football team, but never a women’s football team. There are usually a men and women’s team in every sport, except football. Therefor it is only right for women to have their own football team.

Sixty minutes. A field hockey team has sixty minutes to prove that it worked longer, faster, and harder than the opposing team. The countless amounts of effort, time, sweat, and pain all pays off during those sixty minutes. Practice is close to indescribable; after the warm up run, we sprint. After we sprint, we do drills. If we don’t sprint in the drills, we do more sprints. Summing it up simply, the running is intense and extensive. The practices are long and hot, and the expectations for performance are extremely high. I absolutely love it.

I do believe that it is very important to be involved with not only your school but also

Call it failure to capitalize on an opportunity or failure to commit 100% effort to my team; both would be true and both failures lead to lessons learned my junior year on the high school varsity soccer team. From the time I was little, with my dad as my coach, success came easily and failure was a concept not easily grasped. Playing on the JV team my first two years of high school was pretty much a given, and in hindsight, I realize how valued I was on the team. I started most of the games both freshman and sophomore year and played a significant amount. As my junior year was approaching, I knew this was not going to be the case. Desperately wanting to make the team, lots of training and hard work was how a majority of my summer free time

Last year, I had been one of three sophomores to make the varsity soccer team. I was proud to be part of the elite group and motivated by the opportunity to play with the upperclassman. The season kicked off with a promising start. Coach gave me encouraging feedback and significant playing time as he tried to determine my position on the field. Game after game, I kept earning more opportunities

I come from a small town in Wisconsin population 556, which means that there never is a big controversy of ideas or beliefs. For some reason though, my senior year of high school was the year that a big controversy happened, over the Clayton Cheerleading Squad. I’m the captain of the Clayton Football Cheerleading Squad, which brings on a lot of responsibility but my last year of cheerleading started out different then normal. This year our football team lost approximately seven players due to a disliked coach. That didn’t affect the cheerleading squad at all; in fact we were having an amazing season. The new girls were catching onto the cheers really quickly and our mounts were going up safely and efficiently. But before we knew it everything

Nothing brings a team closer than working together towards a goal. I discovered this especially during the final game of my soccer league tournament last spring. My team, the Saints, had just finished a bittersweet season. After losing our leading scorers the year before, we had defied the odds and made it to the third place game in our tournament. The team we faced were our longtime rivals, the Lions. We were not about to let any opportunity to beat them pass us by. Our offense was ready to score, and our defense was prepared for anything. From the starting kickoff to the final whistle, my team and I played our hardest, and taught me what unity actually meant.

It was my third time trying out for middle school soccer. I felt strong, fit and ready

Many people believe in this idea that a fifteen year old girl should not be coaching a younger group of kids. I however strongly disagreed and I took that chance to step up and help the younger children in my community learn the game of soccer. Three years later majority of these children are still playing. For all the hate that parents gave towards me, I realize now that it was all worth it. Some scoffed at the idea that a "kid" was coaching the team, well that "kid" took time away from doing other things. I could have been hanging out with friends or doing school work but I saw that members of my community had children and even other younger relatives that wanted to play the game.