Descriptive Writing About Soccer Camp

As I walk up to Mr. DeBoer shaking from my head to my toes, my legs felt like Jell-O. I was so in shock, I could hardly think, walk or talk. I still couldn’t wrap my brain around this beautiful gift my soccer camp coach was going to give me. All the cold, cloudy, windy days were all worth it. My eyes meet his eyes and I look back down at the gift, a piece of paper was waiting for me. But not just any piece of paper. A piece of paper that felt like gold. A piece of paper that made me feel confident.

That piece of paper read, “Meulensteen National Technical Soccer Camp/Championship, Indianapolis Indiana. November 8, 2015. To the soccer player of Jenna Parker.”

I flip it over after I read the front and notice big black letters reading,

Your coaches

pick two people from your age group to compete in a soccer camp in Europe!
The moment I read that, I knew I wanted this.

“Are we there yet?”, I ask my mom in excitement.
“Not yet honey”, my mom answers.
“Will we be there soon?”, I say.
“If soon you mean 3 hours.”
My jaw drops in horror. “3 hours?”, I say in a whiney voice.
“Yes.”
“But-” I was about to say something but my brother cuts me off and starts yelling at me, like always.
“Jenna, will you just be quiet for once? All you do is talk!”, he yells in annoyance.
I slump back into my seat and make a low whine. My head shifts to look out the window as I watch trees zoom past my window while we drive on the highway. The cold November wind blowing my medium length brown hair. The cold wind makes my eyes water as I think about the adventure that was waiting for me in just 3 hours.

The blasting sound of the alarm clock next to the bed wakes me up. I slowly open my eyes and smack the snooze button on the top of that alarm clock so hard my hand stung. My back cracks as I sit up and look around the room. My family is getting ready. I can see my mom brushing her teeth in the hotel bathroom and my dad and brother heading out the door, I assume getting breakfast. The moldy smell of the hotel bursts into my face as I finally start to wake up from my deep but yet snoring-all-around-me slumber. I slide out of the flat hard bed and touch the carpet. The dirty carpet squeaks and creeks with each step I take. “ Good Morning Jenna! How did you sleep?” I hear my mom say as I slowly walk into the bathroom. My hair in brown knots as I try to brush it. The brush stops everytime I get to the tangle. The joys of having long hair. I think to myself sarcastically. Once I finished brushing my hair, I slid out of my red pajamas and into my tight, black, long sleeved under armour shirt. My arms itched as my hair follicles rubbed up against the shirt. I put all of my soccer gear on and yelled to my mom, “I’m ready!”
“Ok!”, she yells back. All of a sudden, I hear the door squeak open and my brother and dad walked in with a bag in his hand. The warm, sweet smelling air of bagels and doughnuts filled the room as he set the bag on my bed. “Dig in everyone!”

I look outside my window. Buildings tower over our car as we drive on the highway in Indianapolis, Indiana. My daydreaming was interrupted when my dad says,
“And, that everyone, is where the Colts play!”
“Cool!!!”, my brother says pressing his nose against the window. Everytime he breathed, I could see the window get foggy. My face got red every time he exhaled.
“Dad, no offense but I don’t really care about stupid football right now”, I say in annoyance with my arms folded, looking out the window. From the corner of my eye I can see my dad look into his side mirror at me. He looks at my mom and smiles. He knows I’m nervous but doesn't want to bother me.
We all sit in silence until we park. I can hear my mom and dad quietly discussing which parking space was the perfect one while we drive in circles.
“No, that’s too far away.

That’s too tight. We are never going to be able to get our car out!”, I hear my mom say. I see girls and boys with their parents walking into a building. The wide, rectangular building was stretched down to the end of the parking lot. Posters with the words, Soccer Camp!, were hung on each glass door. Our heads automatically swung forward when my dad parked the car...by the way, the car was crooked. I jump out of the car and help my little brother out. His eyes shine when he looks to his left and sees the Colts stadium. I roll my eyes. All my dad and brother do is talk about football. Ooh! The Colts are playing today! Matt come watch with me! TOUCHDOWN!!! Was all I hear in my house. It was good to get out and listen and play a different sport for once. My legs shook when I saw how many people there were. Tall, short, young, and old kids are walking frantically everywhere around the inside of the building. The more they walk, the more nervous I get. I can feel my shoulders bump into other people's shoulders as my family walked through the swarm of people. We get in the line with the letter “P” over a woman's head hanging from a wall. Her hair was in a tight gray bun, with rectangular glasses. She slowly looks down at

me.
“Shirt size?” she questions me.
“Ummm...” I look back at my mom. She could tell I had no idea. (She was usually the one who handled that junk.)
“Kids large”, she tells the woman.
“Let’s see here..,” She shuffles through a not-so-neat pile of pink shirts. The shirts were scattered all over the tan desk. Some of the shirts were even falling off. She was taking so long, I can hear my brother give a slow sigh.
“Found one”, she says. I tightly gripped my shirt as I walked outside, nervously, to start my long day.

I thought I would be cold, but I was wrong. All the running, all the squats, all the skills were finally draining me out. I was only an hour into the day and I was tired. I wanted to go home. I thought it would be soccer camp. Well, it turns out it was just like soccer boot camp. It rained. A lot. My pants were muddy, my shirt was muddy and even my hair was muddy. (I have no idea how that happened.) I could feel my heart beating even when I was just standing still. Everyone around me was flying by. Skill by skill they impressed the coaches. But, when I did a skill, that was another story. The rain slapped my face as I sprinted from each cone to the next, touching the wet muddy ground at each cone. Each and every drill that I did, I either fell or slipped. I felt like everyone around me was laughing. I imagined everyone circled around me pointing and laughing and singing, “Jenna is a weakling! Jenna keeps slipping! We’re all better than Jenna!” I shook my head and tried to get the day dream out of my mind. I pushed myself as hard as I could when running, jumping, doing pushups, but everyone just seemed to be better. Was it because I was younger? Was it because I was smaller? These thoughts flew in my head each time I slipped. I didn’t know why I kept going. Sure, my body ached, I had a headache and I had bruises all over my knees but I wanted to go to Europe so bad even though I could hear kids snickering around me each time I messed up. I heard one girl say my name. I didn’t know what they were talking about, but I didn’t want to know. They’re gossiping was interrupted when the coach yells, “Ok kids! Time for races!!” We each lined up in two lines. Each kid went up to race and they were fast. They zipped by each of the coaches with their clipboards. All of a sudden, it was my turn. “Ready, GO!”, he yells.
We both take off. The wind pushes me back each time I lunge forward. It roars in my ears. The mud whacks the back of my leg with every step. My heart raced each time I would get ahead. I’m going to make it! I’m going to cross the line first! Then I will win and everything will be okay!”, I thought. The moment I finished it, I could feel my feet start to slip under me. Everything felt like slow motion. My feet slipped on the mud and I fell flat on my back. Tears filled my eyes as I looked up at the dark cloudy sky. I could hear kids laughing but I didn't want to get up and look. I was a hot mess. My face was red and my lip was bleeding. My sweaty, sticky hands touched my face as I covered my eyes in embarrassment. At the beginning of the day I thought I would be one of the best kids in our age group but I expected too much. All I wanted was to go to Europe and be a better soccer player. Now the Europe tickets were flying out the door. My heart felt like an elephant sat on my chest. It was hard to breath and it was hard to say anything. All of a sudden, I heard footsteps coming toward me. Each step they took I heard a squish from the mud. I thought it was going to be a coach coming to help me but I was wrong. A girl with curly brown hair, green eyes and big glasses came over and looked down at me. Her head blocked the sun when she looked at me. She put her sweaty, muddy hand out in front of my face. I slowly took it. She smiled a big toothy smile and helped me up. When I finally stood up, she smiled and said, “Hi. I’m Emma.”
“Hi, I’m Jenna”, I told her.
“Are you ok? It looked like that fall hurt”, she asked me.
“Yeah, I think I’m ok”, I told her while checking my elbows to make sure there was no blood.
Before I knew it, she started to walk away to begin the new drills that we were going to do. That was probably the best part of that whole entire camp. Yep. Just meeting someone. Just one act of kindness made my day. We didn’t really talk to each other for the rest of the day though. But, I was getting better. It turns out that the motivation to prove those kids wrong drove me to do the very best I could. I didn’t fall, didn’t feel like I was going to pass out, (That was a relief) and I felt alot better. I even scored some goals! Each time I scored one, the others kids’ eyes burned in my head behind me in jealousy. I could feel they’re anger building up as they huff and puff. I looked back and saw their faces were red hot. That’s right. I still got it! I thought. I shot by all the other kids in the rest of the races that we ran and I had a smile on my face while doing it. Each squat I did was better than before. Each push up I did was better than before. Finally, it was the end of the day. The sun started to go down and all of the kids looked up at the sky. It was filled with purple, orange, yellow, blue, and pink streaks from the sunset. It looked like someone painted the sky. Everyone's eyes glowed as we said “ Ooh and ahh!”. We hear a loud voice come from the field. The screech of the megaphone rung in our ears as we covered them. It was the head instructor telling us that we were done for the day.
“Great job everyone! I noticed very good sportsmanship between all of you!”, he yells.
“Yeah, right”, I mumble sarcastically, “All of us.”
“You may go to your parents and have a good rest of the week. Remember, you will be receiving a letter in the mail from us in January if you were chosen to compete in the European soccer camp! Good night!”, he tells us. That’s it? No memorable speech? No awards for outstanding performances? I worked my butt off and this is how he ends it? Seems odd to me, I thought. While I was walking out of the big black gates that lead to the field, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I spun around in shock to see Emma standing there and smiling at me.
“Good job. I hope you get to go to Europe in January,” she says.
“Thanks. You too.” We start walking out of the gate together when she says,
“So, where are you from?”
“California”, I say.
“Really that is so cool! I’m from Texas.”
“I've always wanted to go to Texas!!”, I yell.
“And I’ve always wanted to go to California!!” We both start laughing and smile at each other. “Thanks for helping me. You really gave me the courage to continue”, I say sincerely.
“That’s what friends are for!”. I blush as we walk back to the building where our parents were waiting for us.
“Write to me”, she says, as she hands me a piece of white paper that was folded.
“Ok” , I say. I hand her a piece of paper with my address.

Before I knew it, we were in the car driving home. My dry, muddy shorts were getting mud on the car seats as I look out the window. Just one small act of kindness changed everything.

I was sitting on my bed doing my homework on a regular Saturday afternoon, about 3 weeks after the camp, and I hear a soft knock on my door. My mom pops her head in and says, “Honey, there is a letter in the mail for you”.
I look at her confused. First of all, who sends letters anymore second of all, why would anyone write to me? Third of all, it’s not January yet! They couldn’t be sending the letter from the camp early? She hands me a big white envelope that says Dallas, Texas on the front. Dallas? Who would write to me from Dallas? I thought. Thoughts swarmed in my head as I opened it.
I pulled out a piece of paper that read, Hi Jenna! Hope you have had a good couple of weeks since you've returned from the camp. I read on and I got my sense knocked into me. It was Emma. The girl from camp. The girl who made the rest of the camp amazing. As it turns out, I was hoping for something that I really wanted at the beginning of camp and instead, I got something quite different from it in the end. No, it wasn’t an amazing letter from the camp, but It was pretty close to it. Also, I made a good friend. A great friend. I pull out a piece of paper from my desk that was next to my bed, click my red pen open and I start writing.
Dear Emma…..
Theme- When you have trouble and need help, and are scared, think that, friends and are closer than you think.