Footie and Me

Growing up playing organized sports was never a thought in my head; sure my brother and I would get together with the other kids and end up playing road hockey with curb post made of bricks or piles of leaves. All the activities we did play did take some organization, limited, but joining a team was not something that we knew much about growing up since we had each other, family and friends on the block.

My first taste of organized sports came in grade 6; I tried out for the basketball team only to be turned down after hours and hours (over two days) of practice which in my head made me as prepared as Michael Jordan in game 6. As sad as I was something began to stir about, I had an itch for something that was missing, that competitiveness, drive, longing, the feeling of proving myself.

Soccer tryouts were next, the only time we ever played soccer as a group would be during lunch recess where every boy and few girls would head on to the soccer field and play class vs. class FULL BODY CONTACT soccer. I loved it! I made the first cut, starting defense but it didn't translate. My first tackle was a full on body check, red card and a very upset coach. Who knew that wasn't allowed, a body check was commonplace during lunch time.

Playing soccer became a serious thing for me in high school, I learned proper technique and structure and we went all the way only to lose in the finals at home. My senior soccer year almost didn't happen, no keeper, no coach and we had to recruit players from anywhere that we could. Baseball was ending so we grabbed our star pitcher, there were a couple of guys playing Magic cards in the lunch room so we grabbed them, basketball wasn't doing too well so we grabbed the star on that team, another one who didn't speak much English and we had at least two guys with bum knees. I was the defensemen for our team, I held the back in check over years at school and one day we were told “even If god came down here, you still wont have a team," I looked around the locker room for a response yet no one opted to play keep so I did and let me tell you something, (well you have no choice since you’re reading this) it was the best decision ever! You have to be a little bit crazy to allow yourself to be pelted by shots but I had an ace up my sleeve named Dejan Jakovic, our star, he taught me how to play net. We organized our own practices and seeing how much passion we had for a team a coach eventually showed up one day on his own.

It was fun! Our band of misfits went onto an undefeated season, unfortunately our season ended in the quarters 1-0 to what in my opinion should have been a cancelled game due to the fact I was knee deep in rain.

There is this feeling that words cannot explain when you launch your body across the goal to parry off a ball after the opposing striker battles through your players only to be shut down, your teammates get energized and the opposing team is left wondering what just happened. That passion never went away transitioning from defense to goal, I still felt it as my teammates put the ball past other keepers as my role and drive was now not to let a single ball past me, I found something better, something even more invigorating, being the last line of defense, controlling the back line, telling my defenders where to be with my eyes on the whole pitch seeing the play develop and being the voice that encourages the team to push on.