From the ages of four till fourteen, if you ever needed to find me, I was on the soccer field. In that decade-long career, I only ever had one coach and the same nine girls with me. No matter what season, no matter what age group, it was a certainty that we would be together. We were a team, an unbreakable unit. And we were awful. I believe we went a solid three years without winning a single game, suffering through crushing defeats every Saturday morning. Our parents would cheer when we made a successful pass. It was bad.
And yet, every single one of us looked forward to putting on that uniform. Losing didn’t matter, it was just a game. What mattered was the teammates. We’d grown up together, from preschool to eighth grade. Practices were full of laughter and love rather than grueling, miserable sprints. In retrospect, that was definitely why other teams seemed to be three times as fast, but I appreciated the prioritizing of fun. I haven’t had something like that ever since. I’m eighteen now, and watching those girls commit to college and pick their career paths makes me more upset than losing thirty-straight soccer games in a row.
Coach Mickey was the goalie’s father and knew absolutely nothing about soccer to begin with. He loved two things, his daughter and Ohio State football. Our Richmond Kickers rec team felt more like a football team than soccer most of the time. I practiced tripping my little brother in our backyard for hours in preparation to make the perfect in-game tackle. We couldn’t score a goal to save our lives, but the entire team was forced to become well-versed in defending. Our goalie, firstly because of her father and then just automatically, was never stranded alone. That mindset seeped into my developing mind. Never leave your friends to face opposition on their own. It transcends sports.
I truly believe that that team made me a better person. I learned how to keep friendships going for over a decade, I learned how to pass the ball to a better opportunity instead of hogging the glory, I learned how to trust that someone was where you needed them before looking. We might’ve been the worst soccer team in the Richmond area, but we were the best team in the entire world. We all quit soccer when we went to high school, focusing on clubs and jobs and other sports. Not a single one of us joined a new soccer team. I’m either playing with them or not at all. As we go our different ways into adulthood, I know just what the good ol’ days I’ll look back on are.
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