The other day, I saw a tweet on College Soccer Truth‘s twitter page. The tweet asked WHY we play our sport and why we are pursuing our dream.
Why soccer? There’s basketball, volleyball, cross-country, gymnastics, dance, even log rolling. I have played practically every sport you could name. Any sport in the entire world was available to me and I chose soccer.
Don’t get me wrong, I really like basketball and cross country and all the other sports I’ve competed in, but something about soccer just stands out. It is my escape from the stress of daily life.
From the moment I first touched a soccer ball, my 3 year old self knew soccer was the sport for me. I can’t fully explain the love I have for the sport. It is about how it makes me feel. I love the sensation stepping on to the pitch gives me. I love the way the ball rolls over a freshly cut field. I especially love the feeling – do you know the feeling? – of hitting a perfect volley. Soccer is the source of my happiness. It makes me feel right. If I have a bad day, I can go out and get some touches on the ball and the rest of the world just fades away. Soccer is freedom for me.
I can’t get enough. One thing a lot of players seem to struggle with is practicing on their own outside of club practice. That’s no struggle for me. I want to play and all the time. If I’m not playing, I’m practicing or thinking of playing. It’s not a struggle for people who really love the game. I don’t know how far I will go in the sport, but I want to keep playing as long as I can, against the best competition I can, and at the highest level I can. The game is inside me. It’s part of who I am. You have to live it and you have to love it.
