Soccer can bring happiness to anyone

I believe soccer is a sport for all ages. Why do I believe this statement? I started at an early age and worked my way to older adulthood. Soccer became a passion of mine from the beginning. I have played soccer for over 12 years and it has lasted me to this present day. That is why I feel that I am very passionate about this sport. Soccer is an easy sport to understand and I enjoyed my first season in the spring. I had some great coaches over the years and I had a great time. You can tell by all the times I have smiled in my soccer pictures for the seasons. I would like to share my story about how I began and how I came to love the game of soccer.

I began the sport of soccer in 1984. I was 8 years old and started my season in the spring. Mrs. Boberg and Mr. Monhollen were my coaches and our team color was mustard yellow. I had a great time on the team because the coaches made the game easy to understand. We had 11 players on the team and each time we had a game, we would each get to try a different position on the field. I was placed as forward, half back, defense, and once or twice as a goalie. For each season, we changed coaches and the colors of our uniforms. I played soccer from 1984- 1987 and attended Ella Canavan in elementary school. I was glad I participated in soccer as my first sport. It made it easier to move onto all the other sports I played in for different seasons. Soccer was great choice and it was going to last for more years to come in the future. Here are some of the teams I played on during my grade school years.

After I finished grade school, I decided to try out for the traveling team in 1988 during middle school. I made the team and played in many different locations around Medina County. I was very lucky to be on this team because it was the highest ranked soccer team in the county. I played for two seasons on the team and went to cities such as : Brunswick, Berea, North Royalton, and Wadsworth. We also played in Medina for our home games. I loved playing on the team and developing more skills for the game of soccer. After ending my years in middle school, I began to think into my high school years as the next step into playing for more seasons.

In high school, soccer was a lot harder than middle school. The first step is to try out for the team. You were either accepted for the JV or Varisty team. I tried out for the girls team and made the cut for the JV team that season. My coach, in 1990, was a woman named Pat Knotts. We had a lot of games to play, so our training was hard and could make you tired by the end of the day. We would do laps around the field, run intervals, dribbling the ball, passing drills, practice games, and shooting on the goalie. Our team rode the bus to our away games and played on the field at the Medina Middle School for home games. I had a great season in 1990 with the JV Girls team and was glad to have been part of the team.

When I graduated from high school, a few years passed and I wanted to join a co- ed team for young adults in Medina. I played outdoors and was able to participate for about two years. I also played practice games with the University of Akron Women's Team in 1998. When the coach of the AU team asked me to join in 1998, after a practice game, I had a very disappointing moment. I had to tell the coach that I was graduating from the University of Akron and moving to Cincinnati, Ohio. It was an unfortunate event because I enjoyed playing the practice games that he allowed me to participate in for AU. My biggest disappointment , in the game of soccer, was that I could have been on a college team. I moved that summer and a couple years passed. I found out about a women's league called the Ohio Southwestern Women's League.

When I started playing on the Ohio Southwestern Women's League, I decided to play for two outdoor seasons. During the league's games, I would usually play half back because I was able to run up and down the field without any issues. My son was brought to the games and he found it interesting to see a group of women playing on the soccer field. We had referees, families to cheer us, and had a game every Saturday. I enjoyed the time I spent with these women because we felt like a family. After the two seasons were over, I moved on to indoor soccer at Soccer City. I played on two types of teams- a women's league and a co-ed league. Indoor soccer lasted two seasons and was worth playing to get in the exercise I needed. Here are some pictures of the Southwestern Women's League.

While writing about my years as a soccer player, I have expressed how much soccer has meant in my life and have not lost the love for it. Soccer is a sport that I will always enjoy and I hope to play again in the near future. I tend to play a couple of seasons and go back to play some more games on another league. It is a sport that I have a passion for and I hope to continue until I am too old to run up and down the soccer field. If you have a passion for soccer, I encourage you to continue the game. It brings people together and creates a great environment. In ending, what sport are you passionate about? If it is soccer, then we share something in common. I hope others will find their way to the soccer field. I know it is calling my name and I am ready to go again.