My extracurricular is competitive Soccer. I chose to pursue Soccer from a very young age because of a strong influence from my Father. My Father played soccer his entire youth and then once he graduated from High school he decided to pursue a career in professional Snowboarding. When i started playing Soccer i was about 3 years old. My Father enrolled me in Tim-bits Soccer and I started playing twice a week. At the time I really did not enjoy playing Soccer. I thought that it was way to hard and because I wasn’t good at it that I should just quit. I cried and cried to my dad about quitting but he refused. He made me play wether it was rain or shine. Once I started going to school I began to make friends, and later I would learn that they played soccer as well. Knowing that I wasn’t the only person playing soccer made me feel like I was part of something. Throughout my first years of soccer I joined a real team. The only downside was that I lived in such a small town, meaning that we only had enough 5 year olds to make 2 real teams. Only having 2 teams eventually worked out because everyone that was playing on those 2 teams I became close friends with and still talk to up to this day.
Over the next few years I began to become very familiar with the sport. Soccer became more of a lifestyle, rather than something that my Father would make me play. Once I was about 8 years old I had been playing for 5 years. During those 5 years I played soccer as much as I could. Wether it was with my team, with friends at the local field, or just with my siblings in the backyard on the mini net. At about 9 years old I tried out for my first real competitive team. The only thing was that I was trying for this team as an underaged player. The team was a U12 rep team. U12 means that the appropriate age to qualify for that team was 11 years old. So when I showed up to the first tryout as a 9 year old I was stared at like I was completely lost. The tryouts went for 2 weeks and were very difficult, even more difficult for myself because I lacked a lot of psychical strength. After the tryouts I was forced to wait for 1 month to await results. One day during the summer I was sitting in my backyard eating ice cream with my siblings when my mom came to me and told me that she had some news. I immediately thought that she was gonna tell me that I didn’t make the team. I thought that if that happened I would just quit soccer, but when my mom took out her phone and read the email saying that I made the team as an underaged player I was over the moon. Making that team really continued to fuel my love for the game and really made me want to take Soccer to the next level. In that same year me and my team went on to finish as the 2nd best team on Vancouver Island.
After that season concluded I was at the point in my athletic career where I really had to decide whether or not soccer was really for me. I knew that soccer was something I loved and something that could really keep me at my best physically and mentally. Since that day soccer was absolutely everything. I played at the highest level I could at my local club up until I became too old. At that point I was 13. After that year I decided to go and tryout for the Upper Island Storm team. They are a club that plays in VIPL (Vancouver Island Premier League). When I tried out for the very first time I had quite a hard time. The amount of kids to choose from was a vast amount. Anyone Vancouver Island could try out for that team. The very first year I tried out I was sadly denied. Hearing that I was cut really shoved me the wrong way. I was extremely disappointed in myself but all I wanted to do was work hard and train so that I was ready for next seasons tryout.
At the following seasons tryout I felt strong, confident, and talented. I felt like I was working towards something that I was so very passionate about and all I wanted to do was make that team. Roughly a month later the results came out for the team and I had made it. My confidence had skyrocketed. During last years season with Storm we had managed to win the entire league on Vancouver Island, the BC Mayors Cup, and we achieved the Silver medal in Provincials. Playing with that team really taught me what it meant to be apart of a team and to learn how to love and respect everyone you play with regardless on their background, or beliefs.
Soccer is something that I have loved my entire life. Playing this sport keeps me at my best in absolutely everything I do. It keeps me humble and has taught me how to treat everyone with the upmost respect. Soccer is a lifestyle and could not comprehend who or where I would be without this sport. That is why I chose Soccer as my extracurricular.