Kick It Low To High
I can still remember the day the roster came out. It was in alphabetical order, and the names were highlighted in a fluorescent yellow. I scanned the list carefully until I reached the P’s. An eager knot of anxiety tightened inside my stomach. This was the moment I had been waiting for, what I trained countless hours for. My restless eyes reached the spot where my name should have been but wasn’t, and my entire world came crashing down. A tsunami of disappointment violently destroyed every ounce of hope I once had. My vision became blurry with angry tears and my chest welled up with a passionate fury. I had failed.
For my whole life, soccer has been the center of my world. I constantly wanted to challenge myself as much as possible. Coming from a small town with one soccer team, this had always been a challenge. But, when I was 13, I heard about an elite team called ODP. It’s an Olympic Development Program that trains its players with the best coaches nationwide to help them evolve into extremely gifted athletes. It was bigger and better than anything I had ever experienced. Making this team became my most valued goal. I began working hard to make the team.
Tryouts were a blur. I traveled two hours from my home town to an unfamiliar area with strangers. There were seven tryouts in total, each lasting two hours. The tall girls towered over my small 5’2 frame and they played rough. This was truly an eye opener concerning how sheltered I really am in my comfortable life. The final decisions were made very carefully and only the most elite players were selected. My confidence was sky high along with my expectations.
After the final tryout, all I wanted was to hear the news of who made the team. The long weeks of waiting dragged on and on as my anxious excitement continued to grow. This was everything to me.
Once I discovered that I had not made the team the previous year, my life crashed into a downward spiral. The next few weeks were the hardest I have ever endured. No matter what I did, the eerie thought of failure always found a way to creep coolly into my mind and take over my every thought. I felt absolutely passionless. Everyone saw both physical and mental changes in my life and worried about me. It all seemed pointless.
My concerned coaches and friends continued to try to talk me out of this setback. Nothing was working. Then one day, everything clicked. I saw it clearly from their point of view and suddenly understood so much all at once. My eyes were opened to things that were blocked by negativity before. I realized how letting this one obstacle defeat me was not beneficial. I realized that how I react to failure is how people will remember me. My attitude would leave behind a legacy that would always follow me. And, most importantly, I realized that failure can be a positive thing because it fuels more than a flame of desire. From that day on, I decided to work twice as hard as I had the previous year to make the team.
After lots of hard work, I made the team. It was all the best experience I have ever had, but in my success, I always remember the failure that got me there. When I was denied of the one thing I wanted most, failure hit me harder than ever. This ended up being one of the best things to happen to me because it opened my eyes to my true potential. These lessons will carry me far in life and help me get past future setbacks. What we learn in our lowest moments carries us to the highest ones and to keep this in mind will take me far in life.
