Damian Wyatt would always remember this day. The day when the San Jose Earthquakes chose him, a rookie, over all star Robbie Keane. As a first round pick, he had an immense amount of pressure on his shoulders. As he walked into the press room after getting drafted, the alternating blue and green tiles popped out at him. The blue tiles had the SJ logo inscribed on it while the green tiles had the MLS logo on it. All of those tiled were on the wall behind him though. As he turned around, his heart plummeted. Dozens of reporters were itching to ask him questions, like little kids begging for candies. He and his advisor sat down in front of a long, large table that served as a barrier between the speaker and the reporters. The first question he got was one that many were wondering. “How do you feel about being drafted before Robbie Keane?” Damian had this exact question floating around his head as well. He conferred with his advisor and in a confident yet not cocky manner he said, “I believe that San Jose is in need of a player with long term potential. I can bring that to the table but Robbie cannot.” His heart was pounding as the people in the room started murmuring to each other. I didn’t say anything wrong, did I? Damian thought. After half an hour of questions, the press conference ended. He didn’t waste a minute and started training the next week, a month before the actual preseason practices began. He hired a personal trainer to help him get ready for the preseason. His trainer was a lot more vigorous than the trainers at college had been. As he trained, he concentrated on other things so that the pain wouldn’t get to his mind. Damian’s dream had always been to be a star soccer player and to make his parents happy. The... ... middle of paper ... ... put his cleats on. The locker room was amazing. It was large yet still gave everyone privacy. He went out onto the field to start stretching and was amazed by how well kept the grass and the stadium was. He started with his favorite exercise, calf stretches, and slowly warmed up. At 9:30, coach Yallop came out and told us to start with passing drills. “Partner up!” he yelled to us. I looked around. Everyone here was very good and were people he respected. The coach then decided to pair us up himself. “Wondo your with Salinas, Lenhart I’m going to put you with Wyatt.” Damian zoned out and thought about his partner. The Steve Lenhart. Steve Lenhart is maybe the hardest working player in the league and now I have to work with him? Thank god I trained all of last month. Steve walked over to Damian and gave him a They started with a simple enough passing drill.
The beginning of a season Will Tyler didn’t have a football team or anything that would make one. He had no players, coach, uniforms or pads. He wanted to change this because he had an uncanny amount of love for the game. First he had found a bunch of people and asked them if they wanted to join. He kept doing this until
At the beginning, Practices get off to disastrous start, with white players accusing blacks of not playing up to their potential, and blacks accusing white players of failing. According to that, Coach Boone orders black and white youths to spend time together, interviewing one another. The captain’s attitude towards a team is very essential. It leads the players to reach their victory.
At the age of 16, Steve Yzerman debuted in the OHL, for the Peterborough Petes. He had an outstanding year posting 91 points in just 58 games. Although he didn’t look as good as Pat Lafontaine, “he was still considered one of the top prospects in the upcoming draft”. (“Steve Yzerman” Legends o...
Some kids that have been playing for a long time got cut. I couldn’t believe it. The next day at practice coach said now that you made the team we are going to have a tryout for who is going to start and make lines according on skill and your ability to work. Every drill I was first, we ran a thing called the stair way to haven, I was first.
“New system. New coach. I tell Derrick don’t get frustrated, stick with the system and players and keep encouraging guys and try to find a way to win games. That’s what being a good teammate is all about.’’
Lastly, the day arrived when D.Y.J. had to confront one of the league contenders. Since we joined the season from the kickoff, we cannot look to catch a high place position, however playing against the league?s best is important for the team in general, so we can then make some predictions for the following season. According to two different sources of information Maxela occupied either first or second line in the league. The owner of the league stated that they were officially first, surpassing ?La Machina?. In any case this was a team we needed to face to make a sense of our team?s potential. Despite Jerry?s effort to coral the crew, there were more or less unpleasant surprises ahead of the game. We arrived late at the park, and five minutes before the whistle we still did not get the numbers. Most of the players who were late, informed Jerry ahead of the time that they will play ? so it was not such a big deal. The different story was with Elvis, Marvin, and James. As per Jerry he had no information regarding their plans, even though we were counting on them. Unfortunately, that did not help much. Overall, we confronted our most important game with serious line-up trepidation:
All of a sudden, he was running for his life. At least, that’s what it had felt like to him. After all, lacrosse was his life. He was playing for his future tonight. The second the ball went into play, he felt the familiar and almost comforting rush of adrenaline seeping into his veins. He chased after the ball like it was the only thing in the world that mattered, and right then, it was. Scouts from three different National Lacrosse League teams were here tonight in this stadium, all watching this game. His game. Tonight was his best and maybe only chance to prove that he was worth something, that he was more than just a nobody with anger issues and an attitude problem.
Throughout his childhood and teenage years Terry has shown strong determination to achieve his goals. As a child Terry had always wanted to play basketball for his school. Unfortunately, he was not very good at this sport. He practiced until in eighth grade when he made the basketball team. His coach advised him to take up a different sport such as running or soccer due to his short height. Although
Athletic Trainers play a crucial part in today’s professional sports. They also help on lower levels of sports in high school, and college level teams. The job of an athletic trainer is simple yet very important, they are charged with treating, and preventing injuries. A trainer does this by developing therapies to reduce pain, and improve mobility (“Athletic Trainer Salaries”). They have to stand for long periods of time, work well with athletes of different sizes, move or carry equipment around, good mobility and communication skills to give instructions (“Athletic Trainer, Healthcare Program”). These trainers serve as a crucial part of an athlete getting back into their sport. Athletic trainers usually work under the direction of a physician, so they are like the Doctor’s healing hands in action.
Everyone wants to get better at something, but some want it more than others. In “How to Transform an Everyday, Ordinary Hoop Court into a Place of Higher Learning and You at the Podium”, the narrator wants to get better at basketball, so he wakes up everyday at 4:30 to go with his dad to his work. Everyday, the narrator would wait 3 hours in his dad’s car until the gym opened, only to sit on the bench and watch the other men play basketball. Finally, one of the best players, Dante, tells the narrator he can play but he’ll get “smoked”. However, the narrator proved him wrong. The narrator learns that if you persevere, work hard, and have confidence, your dreams may come true. In How to Transform an Everyday, Ordinary Hoop Court into a Place
The value placed on the importance of winning in professional sports has hit an all-time high. The astronomical amount of money being spent in the entertainment field of athletics has dictated a win-at-all-costs mentality that has trickled all the way down to negatively affect our youngest athletes - the prepubescent. The athletic world has forever been exploiting our youth as a source of athletic potential, sacrificing the health, safety and welfare of these child-athletes to satiate the intense nationalistic pride of the country and more dishearteningly in the name of the Almighty Dollar. This has caused coaches and athletes to take drastic measures which are sometimes illegal and usually unethical in order to improve performance levels. One of the most controversial training practices center around the impact of strength training in prepubescent children.
Our first practice we didn’t do anything because our coaches wanted us to meet each other and introduce ourself to
“Time to scrimmage! Let's go!” coach yelled. I quickly put on my helmet and snapped my chin strap on.
As a young kid growing up in Detroit the one thing a kid wants is approval from people they look up to. When I was nine years old I played for an AAU team, I had a blount coach who wasn’t afraid to tell u about yourself and not in a nice way either. You would think he would take it down a few notches on some eight, nine and ten year olds, but he didn’t think he was doing anything but showing us some tough love. That’s not how I saw it though, because he took it too far one day when he asked me and my teammates to raise our hands if we wanted to make it to the NBA. As we started to raise our hands he started to name people he thought wouldn’t make it and I was one of them. I didn’t let that hold me back though , so everyday from that moment
...ft," Coach said as we hurried out of the health room. She was right. There was only half the time left. Warm ups seemed to fly by, and before I knew it there were only 35 seconds left on the clock. Murray's team had already headed for the bench for their coach’s last second instructions. "Let's bring it in girls," yelled Coach Moore from our bench. We all ran over not wanting to miss any important last minute words of wisdom from Coach. "OK, starters check in, you know who you are. As I have said, they are about equal in ability with us. We need to go out there and play our hearts out tonight, girls. Enjoy this, it is your last home game this season," Coach said. With that the Ref. blew his whistle to signal the start of the game. I, with the rest of the starters, walked out onto the court and got ready for the tip off, knowing I was completely prepared for the game.