Growing up, we all played sports, danced, rode horses or basically anything you could imagine. Parents drove from soccer practice, to ballet recital, to horse back riding competitions and then back to the soccer field and finally home where they feed everyone. We were three, four and five years old, running around in jerseys that were too big for our little bodies and parents giving us food after every game. We didn't know where the love of the game would take us.

We grew up some; we started to specialize in positions. You no longer played the field; you were a pitcher or a guard. You no longer bounced from soccer to baseball to basketball to football; you focused on two sports. Your parents weren't taking you to Dick's Sporting Goods to buy you cleats for soccer, football and lacrosse, they were taking you to Corner Kick to get a pair that were comfortable and could handle being worn three to four days a week. We still didn't know where the love of the game would take us.

Then we got a little taller and a little faster and realized that one sport was for you. You spent your weekends at the baseball fields or the football stadium but no longer both. People knew you based on your sport -- it was part of your identity. You walked down the hallway and see people who you used to play with. They either went a different path or just let go of sports for good. Your friends were based off of who played what sports and people asked you how your games were. Your parents would pick you up right after school and you would hop in the car and drive to whichever part of the state your games were at that weekend. We still didn't know where the love of the game would take us.

Then you got much taller and much faster. Your muscles started growing along with your skills. You were no longer a midfielder, you were a center mid. You were no longer a second and third baseman, you were the second third baseman. You wore your high school’s jersey to school on game day and you trudged through the hallways halfway asleep because you had practice and homework the night before. Your games took you cross-country at least once a month and people thought you were crazy for traveling ridiculous distances. Your teachers got tired of signing forms that said you were missing class for whatever reason and you were a little annoyed with the amount of make up work you still have from the week before. Coaches from different schools started calling and you have to find time between school and your sport to travel to those colleges to look at. You have to take a break, sit down with your parents and decide what you want to do. But we still didn't know where the love of the game would take us.

Then you are big enough to walk across the stage at graduation. You are accepted into whichever college you picked to represent and you wore those school colors with pride. Your cleats and jersey become something you always have on you, they ride shotgun in your car. People ask you to hangout on the weekend and you say, "I can't I have (insert sport here)," and then they just stop asking you because they always know your response.

Your best friends tell you that you will love your sport more than your future husband or wife and you smile because you know it is true. You train all summer, you watch what you eat, you lift, you wake up at 5:30 a.m. to go run and then you go to work. People ask you what you are doing with your summer and you say, "Work and (insert sport here)," and they just smile and nod because they know you. But, you still didn't know where the love of the game would take you.

Finally, it is the first day. For some, the first day of pre-season and for others the first day of school. But, it doesn't matter because it is always a practice day. You go out and feel the sweat drip from your chin. You might have been a right back, but now you are a right forward. You learn to do what your coach tells you and you learn that this is nothing like what you expected. You have great teammates, some that will be there all four years with you and some that start the path but realize something bigger is calling their name. You walk out onto the field or court under the lights, you hear the crowd cheer and you hold your chest out a little further so that people see the name you are representing. You still don't know where the love of the game will take you.

The fact of the matter is that you will never know where the love of the game will take you. It is something that is so intense and unlike any other loves that you doesn’t understand. You play for four years, sometimes five or six, some will go on to play professionally, others will play adult league or coach and some will never put their gear on again. It is a love that no one understands until they feel it and it is a love completely different for each person. It is the love of the game.