Personal Narrative: Lousy Soccer Player

This is me. Staring into the barrel of the photographer’s camera lens, trying desperately to fake a smile. At that age, this is probably as close as I ever got to smiling at the soccer pitch. That half smile, half frown, while contemplating why I was really there. “You need a spring sport”, were the words of my parents, who “didn’t understand” how hard it was to dive headfirst into a new sport. I would have been a lot happier if I had a pair of hockey skates on.
In 2013, I was a lousy soccer player, and I knew it. This was my first year of playing the sport since the age of five, and I myself at eleven was ready to quit before the first practice ended. By some miracle I had made the competitive team, and ironically, I wasn’t very competitive

The negative impact of my play on the pitch brought my team down, and I knew that without being told; regardless, it was implied through my coaches patient instruction. There were times were positive comments were made to help boost my ebbing confidence, but it was noticeable their encouragement was forced. After two years of frustration and self-pity, I was called up to play with the “Excelsior” team due to a shortage of top tier players. The amount of players per side increased in that age group, and I resultingly crawled my way onto a team with the “good players”. I was so ecstatic I had forgotten that I was the least skilled, and I got on the field thinking that I was as good as the next player. Surprisingly I played like it, and it was with that mindset that I became this athlete four years later, smiling like an idiot on photo day. Either the sports photographer got a whole lot friendlier in the past four years, or I got a lot better. As soon as I I thought I could compete well, I did, and before I knew it, I found myself in the starting line-up. I no longer hated King’s Park field, for smiles like this one became effortless. Looking back at the sideways frown from my twelve year old picture, I can’t imagine being able to play while beating myself up over every mistake. Each criticism only made me more determined to play better, instead of less determined to show up to