Owen I

Practice Outside of Practice

                  “Practice makes perfect.” – Almost every single sports coach or teacher in the world. In my case practice really was the thing that made things perfect for me, in many different ways, in both education and in sports.

                  When I was about four or five years old my dad signed me up for a recreational soccer team, also known as a rec team. If I was to say what I remembered most out about this, it’s either failing abysmally at trying to kick the ball at all, or that sweet ice cream party at the end of the season. My five year old self not knowing that I was bad at soccer wanted to do it again the next year, I’m pretty sure it was for the ice cream, but my dad took it upon himself to help me get better in the off-season.

                  That next season I was the King. I could dribble through all of the other kids like cutting through butter with a hot knife. Not to mention my shot, which to this day is exceptional, not to brag, couldn’t be stopped by those elementary hands. This was all just from a couple of months with my dad helping me out a bit.

                  Fast forward a couple of years to when I was about eight. Up to this point me and my dad were still working in the off-season and some during the season itself but we weren’t doing it that frequent, and they usually weren’t that hard. When my dad asked me if I wanted to do travel that season I of course said yes, because I really stood over all of those kids, so when tryouts rolled around I went and lined up for travel tryouts instead of just signing a paper saying that I’m on a rec team.

                  This came to that and I ended up on the B team. This crushed me. I knew I did good at tryouts, I knew that I worked hard for it, but there was nothing I could do about it. Even though we had a good season that year I still felt like a needed something a little more.

                  The next year we moved to Virginia, I was about 10 at the time. When I got to the elementary schools, since I was just going into fifth grade, I was delighted to find that a good number of kids in the area played soccer. My dad and I basically stopped working on my soccer in the off-season because I felt confident enough in my ability to make it on the A team this time and to get a starting position for myself.

                  That’s when I made the A team like I hoped, but when we started to practice, we did so much running I felt like I was going to vomit almost every time we ran. When It came down to the games as well, I got very little playing time and I felt like I was just four or five steps behind where I should be. When the off-season came that year I asked for my dad to train me even more this time so I could feel like I was actually doing something, so we trained hard like I asked.

                  When I made the A team I didn’t really feel anything, just relieved that I wasn’t cut, but when we got to the first couple of practices I went and broke my leg. It was one of those little breaks but in a bad spot. It was on my growth plate so I couldn’t put any weight on it for about two months, plus the month of physical therapy, so I was out for the season.

                  When it came to seventh grade soccer, I was completely out of it because of my broken leg, in fact I was contemplating not even trying out because of it, but when it came down to it both my mom and dad convinced me to do it. It was a close call to do it though because I barely made the team, in fact I’m almost certain I was last pick, but we did a lot of conditioning that season, not the kind that made you want to puke but the kind that made you feel exhausted and made you feel like you got something done at the end of the day.  At least I kept some of my skills, in fact I got a decent amount of playing time that season.

                  Me and my dad went out about twice a week that summer for my eighth grade year, I was already in pretty good shape due to the conditioning that we did that year so all we really did was work on my ball handling. We worked on all sorts of things, my first touch, heading, shooting, and passing, although even though I was in pretty good shape we still did some conditioning. That summer was probably the most work my dad and I have put in just for soccer.

                  My eighth grade year was one of my most successful soccer seasons. We went undefeated with a 14-0-1 score. Even though I wasn’t one of the captains, which being one was kind of a joke, I still felt like I did really well because I had a loads of assists and I got lots of playing time.

                  This year I have made JV Soccer and was being considered for Varsity, we have already won one game and I’ve already scored two goals and had one assist. I feel as though my time with my dad on the field has made me a much better player than I would be if I only did team practices.