Educational Narrative

A Short-Lived Career: From Start to Finish

            Things like friends, jobs, and various hobbies come and go in one’s life; but a career you have your eyes set on that you work hard at every day of your life is something that many people do not forget. Improvement and practice are two things that we cannot stress enough the importance of, and with this mentality one who strives to succeed will see that you can never get enough of these two things. Learning something new occurs daily; whether we like to believe that “myth” or not. I can remember numerous skills that I have learned over my 22 years of being on this earth; but one of these skills I learned at a very young age kind of shaped me into the professional that I wanted to become, and I would never look back from that day. Soccer was something that was very big in my life from almost the day I was born. My grandfather, father, and sister all played, as well as coached, the sport while I was growing up. Being around this sport daily and seeing the joy that came from people who were also enjoying it made me quickly want to pick it up. And that I did.

            Learning to kick a soccer ball was almost something that I had the urge to do even before I learned how to stand on my own two feet. Before I turned the age of 2, I finally mastered this skill of walking on my own, and when that had happened I quickly knew it was time to kick that ball around like everyone else in my family seemed to be doing. I vaguely remember the very first time I ever learned how to kick a soccer ball; but it wasn’t that first time I learned to kick it that made me have a love for the game, it was the years I took at such a young age practicing on improving, and constantly having the willingness to learn and get better. My second birthday was quickly coming, and all I wanted was a new soccer ball, that I could say was mine. I remember this day almost like the back of my hand; I thought I was the happiest boy on the planet when I ripped that wrapping paper off. To this day I still look at the pictures of this birthday, seeing the joy on my face when I got that new ball, and from that day forward I knew that soccer was something I wanted to learn how to play. It was just a matter of being old enough to pick up the sport, and play for an actual “team” like the rest of my family did.

            My third birthday passed, then my fourth, then my fifth; and all I wanted each year was a new soccer ball from my parents, so I could take it out in the back yard and run up and down on the make-shift field I had created, shooting the ball in the PVC pipe soccer goals my dad had made for me when I was four. Every year I got this new soccer ball I would ask my parents if I was old enough to play yet, and I’m sure by my sixth birthday they got so sick of hearing this question that they went out and found me a league I could play in, and camps that I could attend so I could enjoy the game just like they did. Several Skyhawk’s camps went by and the phases of playing “Micro”, “Mod”, and then being able to play on the big soccer field that I had grown up watching people play on. I was 11 years old now, and I knew that having such a love for this game that everyone saw, including me, I would practice for perfection. By 12 years old I knew almost every rule in the rulebook, and what every soccer term people would yell out as I watched my dad and sister play meant. It was almost as I was brainwashed by the sport, I had such a passion for it that it was all I wanted to do.

            Soccer, to me, was not just a hobby. It was something that I continually wanted to learn new skills, to get better at playing the game, and to be as knowledgeable as I could be about it because one day I knew I wanted to coach this fantastic sport. I had played so much soccer over the first 18 years of my life, and been around the game so much, that I knew I wanted to pursue a career in it, and go as far as I could in life with soccer that my body would allow me. This surprisingly, wasn’t as long as I had hoped. I attended Northwest Nazarene University for 2 years on a full-ride athletic scholarship, all this time and hard work I had put in throughout my life time had seem to pay off. I played two seasons at this school, continuing to practice and strive for perfection every day of my life. Soccer seemed to be my life in a sense. My school schedule had to revolve around it, and my life did as well. The first season went by well, I got a lot of playing time, and continued to work towards my ultimate goal; to make soccer a profession. Those dreams and aspirations quickly ended about halfway throughout my second season playing college soccer. Almost at the blink of an eye my soccer career would be over, and with the injury I sustained it was almost surreal.

            The sport of soccer was something that I had always had a love for, but it wasn’t very clear to me how long I would be playing it and that with the blink of an eye something I had worked so hard towards would now be over. It wasn’t just one day in my life where I learned the art of playing this game; it was throughout the 20 years of my life that I was exposed to the game and began to soak everything in that I possibly could. A skill that has stuck with me throughout my life was not just learned over night. While being exposed to this game for much of my life, I learned that if it is something you love and have a passion for, you can never practice enough, and there is never little room for improvement. Growing up around this sport, and only this sport, made me strive for perfection, because I knew that’s what my family would want. But this skill that I picked up throughout my life time was not something that I knew could wipe away hopes and dreams in the blink of an eye.