To my coaches,

As the seasons change and fall rolls into winter, I can’t help but miss you and the team more and more every day.

To be honest, I dreaded practice more than once a week but I’d do anything to feel the rush of stepping onto the field just one more time. Thank you for that.

Thank you for believing in me even when I was completely over-hitting the stunt or taking a penalty kick — you never let me quit. You let me whine about it, but you never let me walk away from it. You taught me that if I want something I have to go get it because nothing worth having is going to be given to me on a silver platter.

Thank you for always making sure I was okay and if I wasn’t, thank you for sitting down and talking me through it. You were more than just a coach to me. You were a role model and someone who I strived to be every day.

Your confidence and love for the team was contagious. It was because of you that I felt I could do anything. There wasn’t one stunt too hard or one opponent too fast for me because I knew that you believed in me, and that was more than enough.

Thank you for turning the team into a family. It wasn’t until my senior year when I had the pleasure of working with four amazing coaches that truly taught me what it meant to be a part of a team. But even though I had you for just a year, I’m forever thankful that I had you at all.

You pushed us hard at every practice. Even on those days where practice kicked everyone’s butts and we were all dripping in sweat and our bodies were too heavy for us to carry, you found a way to ignite the fire in us again.

Your pre-game, halftime, and post-game speeches will go down in history.

Thank you for never letting us forget how lucky we were to represent our school. You made sure we understood that it took more than just one person to win and that everyone was there because everyone brought something to the table.

Thank you for always being prepared for the worst case scenario and having extra hair ties if we needed them.

Thank you for teaching me that you can get through almost anything in life with a little sass and a light heart.

Thank you for teaching me that everything takes time and it's okay to not do something perfectly the first time.

Thank you for making me captain and trusting me enough to put me in charge of 24 other girls.

Thank you for not kicking me off the team when I would backtalk you for taking me out during a crucial moment. (You were always very understanding of my smart mouth.)

You inspired me, you supported me, you saved me.

You gave me Al Pacino’s speech more than once but you taught me that there’s always just two options in the game and in life, we could stay in hell or we could fight our way back into the light, one inch at a time.

I love you and I miss you.