Athlete

Meg Smith

Dr. Flavin

TR 9:30

20 October 2014

Athlete

Mia Hamm once said, “Somewhere behind the athlete you've become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you, is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back...play for her” (Hamm). The decision to play sports was one of the best choices that I have ever made for myself. Since day one, being an athlete has pushed me to be the best that I can be, both mentally and physically. Throughout the years, I have learned to not take my athletic ability for granted because of all the people who were not good enough athletes to keep playing at a collegiate level, and how fast that could be taken from you.

The first time I was ever introduced to athletics was when I was four years old. I played soccer for the local YMCA team, and immediately fell in love with sports and everything about being an athlete. When I was in first grade, I decided that I wanted to expand my horizon and see what other sports were out there that I was good at. I had begged my parents to let me do gymnastics to the point where they had no choice but to say yes. They were surprised at how quickly I learned the sport, and how good I was for doing it in such a short amount of time. I ended up loving gymnastics, but was forced to choose between it and playing soccer because my parents said that I could not do both. I followed my heart and went with soccer, because of how much I enjoyed the competitive nature, and I knew that I could do big things with my ability in the future.

When I was in fifth grade, I had switched to my first club team called Metro. I was constantly getting better at my position at forward, until the goalkeeper on our team had broken her hand and I was the only one brave enough to take her spot. At first, I was very bothered by the change because I bad always associated that position with being overweight, instead of realizing that changing positions in such little time just meant that...