Personal Narrative: My Life As A High School Athlete

When I was in high school, football was my primary after school activity. For at least fifteen weeks I would spend five days a week doing something with football. My senior year I started for a team that only lost one game in the regular season. Now that I look back at my time as a football player I can see very obvious stimuli for my growth as a player and a person. From the time I first started playing to the end, I wanted to get better, my brothers on the team pushed me and I had coaches that taught and pushed me.

We had cheerleading tryouts at the end of last year. It was one of the most stressful times of my life. One of my biggest dreams was to become a cheerleader. Before cheerleading began I had more free time, played other sports, and spent more time with my family.

College is a crucial time of development in a person's life. Growth can come easily when momentum and success drive you forward, but what about when you're faced with failure and hardships? Beginning college as an athlete was a challenge, however, after dislocating my hip I learned that now everyday life was a struggle. I could have easily allowed this obstacle to end my growth and college career, especially the two surgeries that followed my initial reconstruction, but I realized my circumstance would not define me but drive me. The will to grow and learn when in the face of a challenge can be daunting, but the success is even more rewarding when you continue to push forward and work hard. Also, having difficulties in your life allows you

When I was in eighth grade i was the star of my recreational soccer league, so going into highschool I was not only expecting great things, but I was expected by others to do great things. My coaches, my teammates, and my friends all knew me as a great player which put a lot of pressure on me walking into high school tryouts. I did not know anyone there but I quickly saw that the level of skill I was competing with was something that I had never experienced before. With that I went from being the best player in the league to not making the team my freshman year. A lot of people would have taken this one of two ways: some would have used it as a reason to quit and

An account of one collegiate student-athlete’s five-year experience and its effect on life after playing while adjusting to the “real world”

When I was younger, I was chubby. I was around 200lb at 13. At the time, I didn’t really recognize how obese I was because I could still play any sport. I even made the football and basketball team in middle school. It affected my self esteem and confidence when I would look at my belly. The stretch marks and rolls were very apparent. Although, I acknowledged my flaws, I’ve never let that keep me down. I’d always try to keep up with people that were in better shape than me. It wasn’t that difficult for me because I was fat and athletic. I wasn’t the fat as to where I felt incapable of things.

The best leader I’ve worked with was my Junior High Football coach. My coach used the Path-Goal Theory. I hated football and saw no future for me in that sport. I was teased and literally quit the year before at a different school. I heard about try outs at another school and decided to go. I made the team and backed away from playing a certain position. My coach noticed my arm when he saw me throwing the football and told me I would be his quarterback. I didn't believe, but he kept working with me and made me feel confident in what i could do. My coach was true motivator and he made you want to play harder for him. I led the school to a state championship and had a lot of high school coaches calling my mom. I went on to play high school football

Cheerleaders and cheerleading have always gone hand in hand with American sports since the beginning of their existence. Since then, the sport has evolved into a new branch: competitive. In this term paper I will be discussing the differences in football cheerleading and competitive cheerleading.

I stepped on the field, and instead of an uneven, rocky field, I saw turf. Instead of friendly faces smudged with mud and dirt, I saw strange ones with flowing blond and brown hair. Any connections I made with the sport I so much loved disintegrated in a space of minutes. But what created most discomfort was the competition. I felt I wasn't there to enjoy myself; I felt I couldn't follow my instincts. I was there to win a place, to compete with someone else for a squad number, to tussle with another for a spot. Thus, with too much pressure on my shoulders,  I couldn't be me that day. Heck, I couldn't be me for the whole of tryouts. Looking at players that were much taller and stronger than me, I lost confidence in my ability and failed to express myself. So it wasn't surprising that, at the end of tryouts, my name wasn't on the team

All the long, hard, and tiring hours of preparation were finally put into play. During the midst of the try-out I couldn’t help but imagining me in one of the Carlisle uniform actually representing someone and doing that while playing the sport that I love. It was 5:15 on the final day and the coaches announced that they would be pulling us out into the hallway to tell us which team we were on; the literal feeling was that my heart was in my throat because it was beating that fast. The coach had finally called my name and my heart skipped a few beats. I kind of dozed off for the first part and the only words that mattered to me were “Congratulations Jacob, you made it on the JV team this year and we are very excited to have you on the team this year” I started getting teary eyed because hearing those words come out of his mouth just meant the world to me! In all the emotion of feeling excited I was actually surprised that I got picked to be on the team, because usually coaches pick the skinny people for the reason of that they could deal with the hard work and all the exercise and will be able to handle it without having to take breaks. I helped clean up and I told my mom when I got to the car and she was excited for

My coach called everybody on the team to a meeting the next day and announced that we will be going to the State Cup. Everybody on the team was shocked at my improvement and applauded me. Is I saw their faces filled with joy, I learned that something beautiful can come from unpromising

Have you ever wanted to take something you love to the next level? How could a topic get any hotter? College sports is a rising debate because students are having a tough time with going to practice every day and trying to get their school work done. With that being said, college athletes are pushing for skipping the college process and going directly to the pro level. Now from the school prospective, schools would like for the players to come for four years because it's better competition which leads to more money with television and endorsements. Now the schools and the players can not decide whether or not they can go to the pros directly out of high school. Players need to learn how to find an equal

I have learned many lessons in my life, many of them unexpected. I learn many lessons playing sports, especially soccer. I have played soccer since I was about seven years old, and I have loved it ever since. I now play for the Sartell Middle School team and it’s so much fun! Some lessons that I have learned while playing soccer over the past five or so years are, working as a team always works better, and slow-playing it isn 't always the best idea. There are also many other conflicts while playing soccer, but a big one is that if I need to

All Experiences have different effects on people. In this case the experience that I had was significant. I have been playing and watching football for as long as I can remember. Football has always been a major part of my life, and I always looked up to the Varsity players wanting to be one of them some day. To me football is like a second family (simile. When freshmen football lifting started I decided that was going to work as hard as I could to be my best. So, that is what I did all school year and all summer I put a ton of effort into becoming the best football play I could be. One of the most important experiences of my life was my starting in my first varsity football game, it taught me that hard work always pays off, and changed the way that I look at life.

“What happened? You almost did it. Are you okay?” My teammates surrounded me immediately. I could not say a single word. I went right to my place speechless and was staying there staring at one point in the ground thinking “Why?” It was the right time that could turn to be a milestone for me. Everything was like it should be but the only problem was me. All the moments during those years swimming passed through my mind. I have been swimming since I was 10. I always had fun and loved it, until a few years ago. I was getting better and better and one day my coach told me that I was close to making it to nationals and from then I started putting a lot of pressure on myself. That’s when I started being my own worst enemy.