Why Soccer Is Important To Me

Sports mean everything to me. I love the game, and it's my happy place. I realized that when I got sad, frustrated, mad, or any other emotion. I would use soccer as a way to cope with the struggles. I never really thought about the soccer field and playing soccer meaning that much to me, but when it was taken away from me, I realized its true importance.

Throughout my sophomore year in highschool I played soccer through back pain. Game after game I would hide that I was hurting as well as possible. I would use advil, ibuprofen or anything I could find to help to subside the pain I was going through. There were times where I just wanted to tell my coaches and my parents about what was going on, but I knew if I did then they would make me get my injury checked out by a doctor, so I couldn’t take the chance. I was a starter for my high school soccer team and that came with high responsibility. I couldn’t let my team down or my coaches so I carried the pain with me throughout the season. Sooner than later there was a home game and throughout that game the pain had become so bad I wasn’t able to play at the level of play I wanted to be at. Opposing players would cut and move right past me because my lateral movement had been

Why me? What was I going to do without sports in my life? I was getting better how could this possibly be true? It destroyed me thinking about it, and it was always on my mind. It made me fall apart at times and wonder how this could have happened. I would sit in my room at night and cry not understanding why I couldn’t just play through the injury. I knew I was done and that I’d never be able to play soccer again, and I didn’t mean anything to my team my teammates. I had lost my passion and my drive and had given up. My mind put me in a horrible place and I never thought things would ever get better in my