I kept going for the guy next to me performing to the best to his ability. Success was the result of all the hard relentless work done throughout June into August. I acknowledged that my team had a good group of seniors who were high character student-athletes I spent most of childhood with. Ultimately finishing with a record of 3 wins and 7 loses taught me many lessons on becoming a better person and
We came out and were another 12 and was setting 1st, but there were still the top two teams to go. As I sat there and watch I was so nervous. The second top team went and they missed, that took some encumbrance off my shoulders for a
I unfortunately choked up and didn’t make it on that team. Instead of giving up I choose to keep practicing. I decided to join another team outside of school to improve my skills. My new goal was to make it to my high school cheer team. My new team taught me team skills and with that we were able to win many competitions.
We decided to go to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Soon after we ate, we had to return to the convention center for the results. My team and I waited on stage for our division to be called. Right before the announcer said the results, we all held hands in anticipation and excitement. We just knew we were going to win.
At my second mile, I was in 36th place and the coach had a worried face. At this point, I started to give up. I started coughing, had a runny nose, and was gasping for air. I finished the race in 36th place with a time of 19:44. I was exhausted and sad that the season was over, but I knew that I had one more season left to make it to
That was a decision never regretted in my life, as it showed me that I wasn’t alone, that their were others like me, and able to make friends within my team, which in turn taught the truth of this world. Days had passed by, as my team and I were studying, working hard, and overall hanging out with each other. And then, the day of the competition was finally among us. However, I was not nervous, I was ready, confident that we would win. However, that changed as I entered Blair High School and finally meeting all of the other schools that we were up against.
When I was 7 years old I went to my first high school game with my mom, the teams that played were Roosevelt and Flower. I will never forget that day Sept 8th at 8PM friday night lights. My older cousin Brett Pierce was the starting Cornerback for flowers, I admired him because he the starting Corner and he was ranked #23 in the Nation for his position. My cousin ended the game with 18 tackles, 4 interceptions, and 3 forced fumbles that was one of the greatest days of my life. After the game was over I asked my mom could she sign me up to play football, she told me I wasn’t big enough.
Despite the newspapers and previews saying we would not contend for the state title that year, I kept in my head that anything could happen. Going into the year I told our team “lets focus on what we can do to improve, and not worry about anyone else”. At the beginning, other teams were too strong for our inexperienced runners to compete with, but we didn’t change the focus. Practice after practice, I made sure we were doing everything we could to be at our best for the end of the year. I didn’t care what other teams were doing because we had no control over that.
We went back and forth scoring on each other, every mistake costing the other team a touchdown. It came down to the final two minutes in the game we were tied with them. Our coach had said that we need a stop, somebody needs to make a play. Little did I know at the time it would be me to make it.
However, I began to see the game as more than just a win or a loss. Losing gave the team the opportunity to closely look at what we did well, and what we needed to improve on. We were then able to focus more precisely on what we needed to do in order to succeed. I was able to learn that being successful and winning were not necessarily the same thing. We had success in a smaller sense; we worked as a team, played clean games and were noted for our sportsmanship.
There were 10 other teams from all around Iowa. I showed up barely on time and exhausted. It was a very long day, but ten games later and we ended it winning second place. I drove home with my friend and teammate, Emma Olberding. We drove back to my house and stayed there for the rest of the day.
“Congratulations, this is the 2013-2014 Mission Vista Men’s Varsity Soccer team.” I still remember the words coming out of my high school coach’s mouth as he spoke to the new varsity team after tryouts. I was the shortest and one of the youngest players on the team, but my passion for the game was not any less than anyone on the team. I was one of the only three sophomores on the team with a team dominated by juniors and seniors.
My determination to get better and overcome my obstacles paid off my senior year when I awarded second-team
I had been working hard and really felt like a part of the team. The first real challenge I faced was trying to live in the shadow of my older brothers. Who both had success in their running careers. It was the third race of the year and I was running in the varsity race against our conference rival. To me, this race was a chance to prove I was an important member of the team and could possibly lead the team as captain in the future.
Right after we won the game we got to go to the senior football game right after our game they lost but they tried there hardest to win cause they were working hard and they got a lot of