At a young age I remember the joys of snapping on my shin guards, lacing up my cleats, and heading out of my front door with a smile on my face. At that age soccer was not a chore, it was fun. I played soccer for the mud we got to roll in, the parent line up we got to run through, and most importantly for the snacks we got to eat after games. When I put on that silver jersey I was a soccer player and that was all. I was not the girl who didn’t know how to tie or the girl with the fighting parents, I was Rylee, number 22. 

As I grew older the snacks were diminished, the coaches got meaner, and the fun was taken away from the game that I fell in love with. The louder the yelling got from my coach the more I dreaded the games and practices. The first couple of years of high school soccer I was miserable. I cried in the thought of conditioning three times a day to a total of six hours of constant running and endless yelling. I managed to get really good at hiding the tears as I did goal posts up and down the field. I found a way of putting off throwing up till I got home when I fell apart on my bathroom floor. The game I loved was now a full time job that my body was both mentally and physically rejecting. 

With a few bad hits to the head, it was ruled that taking a break from soccer would be in my best interest. So there I was sitting on the bench and watching a game that I used to love. As a spectator I soon found myself glorified in the technique of the way the ball traveled up the field and the smacking of ball in the back of the net. I studied the way the team was working together and the negatives and positives between the players and the coach.  Ready to get back on the field, my senior year rolled around and it was announced that my team would be getting a new coach. This was perfect, it was my chance to show off that I deserved to be in that game. 

The incoming coach did not have it easy, many of us players rejected having someone of an older age. That was the situation we had just escaped and we didn’t want to deal with it again. A team can only be a family, and can only be successful, with a solid coach who is selfless, positive, determined, and a good role model.  This coach needed to be that. He needed to be someone for players to be able to fall back on, someone that no matter what cares about the game and well being of each and every single player over the score. 

My new coach was all of those things, he was an amazing coach who made being a part of the team mean something, the more the team bonded, and the more trust that was built, the better we got, and the stronger we got. He taught us drills that we had never seen, brought new techniques onto our field, showed us a new level of skill, and frankly a different attitude towards our team and towards the game of soccer. He taught us not only how to be better players but to be better people. Although I lacked being some amazing player as I was bound to my brain injury, I really did learn a lot. 

For the first time since I was a young kid, I was loving the game even though there were no snacks or parent lineups that we got to run through. There was yelling but there was something different about getting yelled at by someone you trusted and knew was only yelling to better you. When I put on that white jersey I was a soccer player and that was all. I was not the girl who was bad at school or slower than the other players. I was Rylee, number 22. I was reminded why I fell in love with the game of soccer in the first place all by one person who cared just enough for a soccer team. Thank You.