The things we carry!

Black cleats, white spikes, torn and dirty, but so many memories in two things on my feet. Late night soccer games to all day tournaments. So little thought about so much needed to play soccer.

In my soccer cleats it has not only gave me memories but taught me responsibility, teamwork, and so much more. There have been times where I’ve been hit and wanted to retaliate, also well in my cleats I have learned to keep pursing stuff, and growing as a soccer player but more importantly a man. In my first high school game I had practiced every day of the summer before: ran,footwork,passing,shooting. We were playing St. Francis, and I thought I would start. The smells of the concessions, cheers of the crowd, only made the bright sunny day more exciting. I did not play one minute the whole game. But I kept pursing my goal of getting the starting position and got it the last 12 games of the season.

I have so many memories with my best friend Noah. Me and noah met when we were 11 and we were on the same soccer team. We were both captains, he always composed himself weather we were losing or not. He always had his hair combed over, nicest, brightest cleats and the loudest voice on the field. I remember every snow day we had he would come over and we would play soccer in the snow. Are cleats would be soaked, are fingers froze and the torn up yard underneath are cleats tearing it up. The cleats were always there when the memories were being made.

Another great memory of my soccer cleats would be a tournament in Cleveland. The whole weekend it rained but we slipped into the championship game. Every time you ran mud would flick up. To pass the ball to a teammate you had to give it a little more power to get the ball to the person so the muck and puddles wouldn’t stop it. I got a perfect pass from my teammate it had skipped on the mud through the defenders leg. I beat the other defender and had an open net. Just me and the lone keeper. I shot the ball slipping and falling on my back but I watched the ball soar right between the keeper’s hands.

The grass is green, short of course the best kind of grass to play on. I rip a shot and it flies over the goal but don’t notice that as my eyes wander at the purple sunset gliding over the horizon. Then you take a moment away from soccer and notice the calmness of the spacious field and the bugs buzzing. All those evenings playing soccer by myself getting better. I will grow out of pairs of cleats but the memories and disciplines that I have learned in all the pairs will be with me forever.