It was a warm sunny day when I was about to play my first game of soccer. I was hanging out with my new friend Luke, who had been playing soccer his whole life and yet to this day is still one of the best in this school. He asked if I wanted to play soccer, and at the time I was a fat indian kid who had never played sports in his life, but I decided to get out of my comfort zone and give it a try. We walked outside into his backyard where all you could see is newly put green grass with a 16x18 soccer goal laying on top. You could feel the fresh breeze slowly going across your skin, as you hear the birds chirping and could smell the fertilizer from the grass. Right from the start, I knew this was the sport for me.

As time went on I practiced more and more, I would play every time I went out with my friends and in my house just practicing. Once fifth grade started was when I finally started playing for my first team at Newtown Rec. I already was the best on my team(not to toot my own horn), this was because I got to train with the best in the school and everyone was mostly bad back then. I was scoring every time I touched the ball it was exhilarating, being able to hear the parents scream and see them jump up whenever I would score. As time went on I improved, playing whenever I could and growing older helped as well. I continued playing on this soccer team, when I then decided that I should move up to academy soccer and play for Alpharetta Ambush.

This all led up to one of the peaks of me playing soccer, it was a hot Sunday near the end of November, when my team had reached the finals of the NASA Tophat Boys Classic. It was nearing the end of the game when I was making a run, all I could see was the goal as the sun glared in my eyes. I heard the parents screaming as I could feel the sweat dripping down my forehead. The ball is played over my head, I sprint onto it only seeing the goalkeeper, I shot and curled the ball bottom right past the goalkeeper, I shouted at the top of lungs as so did the parents. All my teammates came up to give me high five as you could see the disappointed team with their heads down. After the game ended we all received our medals as we went on to have a team pizza dinner and said our goodbyes (until we saw each other the next day at practice).

From then on my whole life changed, I improved over the years and was able to make the high school team. Soccer helped me change my work ethics by making me strive for what I wanted, and on top of that showed me to not be afraid of trying new things. I’m now invited to go play in Italy over spring break and many more is to come. Soccer helped shape my past and present, as well will help change my future.