How soccer has changed my life.

Playing soccer all of the years that I did, didn't only make me successful as a soccer player. Soccer has really changed my life in so many positive ways. If I never started playing when I was a little girl I would definitely not be the person that I am today.

Playing soccer has made me stay fit and healthy, because basically all you do is exercise which after I exercise I never want to eat anything unhealthy it just doesn't sound very appetizing. You also always have to be in shape for soccer unless you want to be benched because the coach isn't going to play someone who can't run for more than two minutes. This made me want to run and practice a lot in the off season so I wouldn't become fat, lazy and out of shape. So basically what I am saying is I would probably be a lot unhealthier if I hadn't played soccer.

Soccer has also definitely kept me out of trouble because it took so much time out of my life. There were times when I hated soccer because I could never do anything with my friends. We would be gone almost every weekend downstate playing in a tournament or a game. Even on the weekends where I would have home games I couldn't go out the night before because I would have to get rested up and wake up early to play my game. We would also have practice three times a week in Traverse City which was a half hour drive for me. I basically only had two free nights a week. It became very frustrating at times but I loved soccer and I couldn't just stop playing. All of the hours that I put into soccer really kept me out of trouble because I was never bored and I always had something to do. I know for a fact that I would have gotten into trouble if I hadn't have played. What do you do with all of that extra time? Exactly, that is why the people who don't do extra curricular activities are more likely to get into trouble because they have nothing better to do. On my club soccer team we had to sign a contract saying that we would stay drug and alcohol free or we would be kicked off of the team. That also made me second think things when that type of situation came up.

There are many other reasons how soccer has changed my life but those are the two that I chose to write about. I thank soccer so much for keeping me a healthy person and keeping me out of trouble. I could be a complete different person today. If it weren't for all the sustained weekends downstate that sometimes consisted of playing in the pouring rain to come home with a loss and all of the the extensive hard practices doing uphill sprints until I could barely walk that we had to participate in, chances are I could be a drug user or even worse in jail, although that's just worst case scenario. Thank you soccer for everything you have done for me. You were a pain in the butt at times but I wouldn't trade you for the world you really made me into a semi decent human being, on a good day :)