My soccer career has taught me many things in life such as always pursue your passions, never give up, and hard work really does pay off. I have gone from a soccer player that was at the bottom to one that has won a State Cup title. The one piece of advice that I would give the youth is give your passion 110% of everything because you will improve over time and your hard work will go recognized. It was the first time I ever had tryouts and I was really nervous. There were three days of tryouts over one weekend. The way the tryouts worked is they had 3 different fields that kids played on. There was a “top” field, a “bottom” field, and an “in-between” field. It was just a bunch of nervous little kids who have no idea what they are doing. If a kid did good he would be moved up a field and if a kid did bad he would get moved down. I originally felt as if I could be one of the top soccer players in Fort Collins, but as the tryouts went on my hopes and dreams slowly inched further and further away from me. The whole weekend of tryouts went by like a breeze, but by the third day, I knew there was no way I could make the top two teams because I was on the middle team for most of the time. Half the time at the tryouts I just stood and watched the kids on the top field, wishing I was playing on that field. At the end of the tryouts, they told us we would be called within a week to tell us where we have been placed. A little less than a week later I got a call and was told that I was on the 3rd team. At recess, I heard that all of my other friends got on the second team and this filled me with inspiration to work harder than them and become the best player I can be. Over the next couple of years, I worked hard at every team practice and went to extra trainings with a personal trainer.

As I kept playing soccer I kept improving. Every minute that I practiced more than the typical player started to build up and make a big difference. I went from the third team to the second team after 2 years. I must have looked like I was going pro with how excited I was. I kept working hard and eventually got on to the top. I went to tryouts and it was just like the first tryouts, except it was only a day long. I got to the top field; I was finally one of the players that everyone on the lower fields was staring at. My palms were doused with sweat, but I somehow managed to play. I felt like I kept up with the other player, but there was no chance I would make the team. Later that night I got a call saying I was on the team. I knew that I would have to work harder than I ever have and that it would take a lot more of my time than previous years. I even became a starter on the top team at Arsenal in the top league in America. Playing on the top team gave me a lot of exposure to other coaches and go lots of opportunities such as a couple of practice with 25 of the top players in Colorado. A couple of my teammates also made these practices and since they were all the way in Denver we would all carpool. The whole way down to Denver we would watch Vines and Try Not To Laugh Compilations on YouTube, there would never be a frown on any of our faces. Playing on the top team gave me so many memorable trips, such as I went on my first out of state tournament with them, we ended up losing all our games. Then the next year we won state cup with them and then went to regionals all the way out in Hawaii for a week, we also lost every game, but hey we got to spend 7 days in Hawaii so I am not complaining.
All this fun that I was having just had to come to an end eventually and it did. It took a complete 180 on me. One day I am on Cloud 9 the next I am debating about quitting soccer. What changed everything? High School changed everything. Just as a disclaimer High School soccer was not all bad because I had many of my high school friends playing on the team and we cracked jokes on the bus on the way to games. High School sports are interesting, most of the time instead of picking the best players, the coaches will prefer to pick an upperclassman opposed to a lower classman. It whole heartily is seniority at its finest. This made my High School soccer experience terrible. Before tryouts, we had some practices with anyone who wanted to come. This gave me a pretty good idea of how I place against some of the other kids. I would watch the other kids and assess them and I felt as if I was one of the better players at my high school. I evaluated myself to be most likely placed on JV, which was pretty good because there are some kids that were four years older than me. On the last day of tryouts, they put everyone in the smelly athletic hallway and brought everyone into a room and told them what team they made. I was waiting for some time, but then they called my name down laid down the depressing news. I got on C-Team. My soul was crushed, yet that was not even the worst part of the experience. The worst part of the experience was seeing who got placed above me, people I thought was worse than me. I quickly came to realize that I would not be able to play with the same intensity as I did in the club season, so I decided instead of just wasting the season and not improving at all, I decided that I should improve on some of my weaker skills. As I learned earlier in my career sitting and pouting about what team you made never does anyone good, I had to work hard and improve myself. This bad experience of High School did not just happen to me. Many of my friends from other schools agreed that they felt like they did not get placed on the team they deserved or played as many minutes as they felt they should of.

Looking back at all the hard work that I have put into making myself a better soccer player, I would not want to change anything. I have had so many great memories throughout my soccer career and all the hard work that I put in made all of the achievements just a that much sweeter.