Why Teamwork Is Important

When I first thought about how soccer impacted my life, nothing really came to mind. I was that kid who mostly looked forward to the end of the game snacks and bringing around the goal jar. But when I actually began thinking about more about playing soccer I realized that soccer was the first place where I was fully submerged into something completely new. I learned how to make friends, how be a leader, and how to have good sportsmanship. These are all things that have made me into the person I am today and it all began on the soccer field.

My church plays in the Turkey Bowl Flag Football Tournament every November. This was not only a time to bond with my youth group, but to also create friendships with other church teams. However, there was a problem: my team consisted of players from age 13-20; however, the 13 year olds had little-to-no flag football experience. Consequently, they got less playtime and slowly became discouraged However, as a leader I wanted to show them otherwise: I coached them, helped them, and give them a new perspective on the game.

Having only one soccer club in Bend to play competitively on and having a relatively small population put me playing with almost the exact same group of girls in the club as I grew up. This also left me knowing everyone who plays soccer and consequently when I got to high school soccer, I was still with the same girls. We had been playing with each other for 7 plus years and had become an incredibly close unit on and off the field. Some of my closest friends came from playing soccer. Soccer had helped me break out of my shell socially and provided an outlet for stress relief. My life revolved around soccer.

Being a captain in soccer whether it's professional soccer or high school soccer is an honor to be. Professional players such as Andres Iniesta, Carles Puyol, Sergio Ramos, and the player that inspired me to play soccer Paolo Maldini have all shown why being a captain is such an honor to be. Now I have been given the honor to be varsity captain for My high school soccer team but I wasn't just given to me because I was a senior no, it was given to me because of my hard work and dedication to become a better soccer player and to become a leader.

Being shoved to the ground and coming up with a mouthful of turf and a bloody nose isn’t the ideal way to spend a friday night, but for me, it's something I put blood, sweat, and tears into. Soccer has been a passion of mine since my father dropped me off at the local YMCA when I was at the tender age of four. Spending all of my free days for thirteen years running after a soccer ball is arguably what made me into the person I am today. Unity, tenacity, passion and pride have all been morals that are valued within the sport and in my own philosophy. I have explored places I’d never give a second thought to because my sport took me there. Friends I had made came from the sport I played. I never ended up asking for friends to come over because to me, practice was hanging out with my friends, doing an activity with a purpose.

I have been playing soccer since before I could even walk. In fact, I joined my first soccer team at the age of five. Soccer is something I have always loved and been passionate about. When I was on the co-ed recreation league teams I was one of the only girls on my team, so I had to compete with boys who doubted me and thought I was weak. I worked hard during practice and out of practice to become better and, eventually, I became more aggressive than them. My eighth-grade year, I tried out for the school’s co-ed soccer team and was confident that I would make the team. During the three hard days of try-outs, I pushed myself to improve each day and received several compliments from the coaches. On the last day, the head coach pulled me aside to tell me

making big plays for our team. On August 1st we had our first game and

I played soccer sophomore and junior year in high school. My sophomore year was actually the first year I played soccer in a official team that I had to try out. But actually, my junior year I was chosen as a team captain and as a team captain I had to lead practice, starting with warm ups and stretches to leading them on the field and yelling my lungs out. Sometimes practice was rough to the point the girls wanted to give up but I always motivated them to do better and try their hardest because at the end of the day you were only cheating yourself or benefiting yourself. When my coach had to leave early for work, instead of finishing practice early, I continued to lead practice even if it meant taking the huge bag of balls home with me and

Before Christmas I had a indoor soccer tournament and it was the same place my mom used to play indoor soccer when I was a little kid so it was like dayshavoo every time I went there even though I have very few memories of it. The game was tied but playing in that tiny space made me frustrated because I couldn 't run without running into someone over and over again so I had to mind my space and always look over my shoulder so that when I turn I won 't get it taken away from me right away but I liked that there were walls to rebound the shots and so we could pass to ourselves when no one is open. After the game my mom took me to eat and she said I 'm proud of you did good but I always felt like I could do better and I could have done more my

The goalkeeper, the one player who everyone will remember for the amazing save he/she made, or the goal which he/she gave up during a championship game. We are the most loathed, fittest, most valuable, and hardest-working players on the field. We are the people who don’t want to live after a game, or want to “live it up” after the game. We are the one person in a group project who does all of the work, but the credit gets shared out equally amongst the rest of the group. We are the person who does work, but gets blamed when you get a bad grade on the project. I have felt these horrible effects since I was eight years old. However, when I was eight, no one cared if you won or lost. Now, I am a fifteen year old high school

On January 18, my life began, however, my story truly began when I was three. For the past three years, I’ve never really had a passion, a love, a story, in anything except my beloved Hot Wheels, but that craze did not last. A little while later, my parents bought me a soccer ball as a late birthday present and brought me to this little flat field. There, they taught me how to kick a ball and I’ve loved it ever since. Even to this day, I thrive for soccer and I honestly think that I am not capable of going more than a week without it.

I play soccer for the Oakridge Soccer Club. I have been playing soccer since I was five years of age. When I first started playing Soccer I had a coach who used to go by the motto “every shot u miss, is a miss towards life.”

Soccer has taught me so much over the years. I started playing when I was very young, and continued through middle school. While I no longer play the sport, I still find myself reaping the rewards for my time spent on the field. Many life lessons were learned, but three really stand out to me. They are still major keys in my life today and contribute to who I am as a person.

In the short story “Thank You Ma 'am,” the main character; Roger tried to steal Mrs. Jones purse, Roger expected to get away with stealing the purse, but instead Mrs. Jones caught him and taught him an unexpected lesson. Roger learned that stealing is not a good habit to get into and that the easy way to do a task is not always the right way to to do it. People learn many unexpected lessons in life at very unexpected times and from unexpected sources, unexpected or not, all lessons are valuable.

One of the most significant activities in my life would have to be soccer ever since I got a hold of the ball in 10th grade, it sparked my interest and a fire was ignited. It simply stared with a few friends asking me to join them then slowly progressed into everyday after school I would go outside to kick around the ball, I never really knew it was for me until I started getting more into it, soccer became my outlet more like an escape for me, it was somewhere I could go when I needed to be alone just the ball and I. Honestly, I never knew that it would affect me in the way it has, it started out as a just for fun kind of thing, then it escalated into actually playing games, turning more into a passion and I could actually see myself in the