This story is something that will forever be burned into my memory. It’s a short story that explains a bit about my grit that I carry with me today. This takes place back in my early soccer years, I imagine I was about 12-13 years of age and I was still playing for the Windsor United soccer club. Our original coach had been a soccer-loving dad named Manny, you can learn more about an encounter I had with him here.
We had a new coach now and his name was Jim Seaman. Jim was the complete opposite from the coach that you’d make fun of or have beef with. He was a super cool guy and I think his job was QA or something for a gaming company based on the fact that he could get his hands on games before they came out. He could also talk the lingo which immediately allowed for an instant connection between him and me. In my youth I had found my love for video games and I remember he was able to give me Halo, an Xbox, and Xboxlive just a few hours before it dropped at midnight. My dad was always smart about befriending the right people in different situations (a skill I later acquired myself) which lead to us hanging out outside of soccer a bit. While Jim was cool to talk to I still was a little stubborn punk who hated soccer and never wanted to go to practice. Despite that, I was becoming a quick player but still lacked any skill or soccer IQ. Jim was a smart coach though and knew how to put players in specific roles that they could succeed in instead of asking for more they were capable of. Because of this he used my speed to make me a defender who could chase down forwards or cleanup long balls which kept me from doing much skill stuff other than kicking the ball far from our goal. By this time we had quite a few players who had been on the team for awhile and we had built a kind of weird team chemistry which allowed us to play better. I say weird because I don’t think I could call many of the players on the team friends but we did have a common goal and everyone had their own unique way of showing how bad they wanted to win. I mean our record was actually decent opposed to our previous 1-50 (guestimating) record we had under our previous coach – which was not his fault either.
I was considered the brat of the team as I would constantly whine, get to soccer late, and be the first to leave. I did have a defensive friend named Luis who was pretty unstoppable on defense and looked out for me. We used to travel together to tournaments and he’d stay with my family most of the time. Aside from him there were few people I connected with on the team.
Anyhow, without getting into the whole team dynamic that we had, this story takes place at a soccer tournament. We were at a “State Cup” tournament which was usually hosted in Morgan Hill, San Jose. Essentially, this complex houses a few dozen soccer pitches and has a whole street of hotels lined up just across from it. I believe we were in our 3rd or 4th game of the tournament and were playing another top club in the area called Ajax. Now, I might be a brat and complain about 100 different things at all times but I’m not one to back down from something or do anything that could put my teammates in a bad situation. This particular game was getting pretty heated as the winning team would move on and the losing team would be out of the tournament. I believe it was a tied game or we might’ve even been down by 1. We were going neck and neck with the opposing team when all of a sudden one of their center mids made a run forward for a through ball. I met him halfway for a 50/50. Instead of either of us getting the ball, the opposing player, being quite larger than me and wearing a knee brace, connected knee-to-knee with me in the middle of the pitch. We both went down quick and instant pain shot up my leg. I already had what I thought were pretty sensitive knees and now I had square on collided with another player.
Instantly the two of us began whaling for dear life. I wasn’t close to many teammates and was already known as a bratty cry baby, so it wasn’t surprising that no one from my team was quick to come check on me. I clearly remember the other player’s parents, coach, and teammates surround him and while attempting to carry him off the pitch I was rolling around screaming in my own right untouched and unchecked on. What I will NEVER forget is while rolling around, with one cheek in the dirt and teams pouring out, I looked up at the sideline to my coach who was simply standing there with arms crossed and a huge glare on his face. As soon as we made eye contact he began slowly shaking his head as if I’d done some horrible act. The look sent a clear message of “stop messing around and get your ass up”.
He had simply no intention to come on the pitch and check on me and honestly my dad paid attention to the games so little he probably didn’t even know I was the one of the ground. As I continued rolling around begging for someone to check on me, I was eventually approached by a few teammates who simply picked me up and encouraged me to walk it off… While the other kid was being hurried off to the hospital to get his knee looked at screaming as if his life was in jeopardy, I was stuck biting my lip and walking off my similar knee injury expected to finish the game.
This was a day that I’ll never forget and I truly think this was a day that, for better or for worse, allowed me to see that sometimes you’re on your own and you just gotta tough it out. Since then I’ve had all kinds of soccer collisions and other injuries and have continued to “walk it off” and keep moving forward. I grew a lot mentally that day.
