When I was growing up I was an extremely competitive soccer
player. I played at the highest level for my age, academy, and was considered
to be one of the best players from my area. I was in the Daily-Herald All Area
Team, an All-State player, and regarded for my speed and ability to score goals
I was on pace to play division 1 soccer. My team was ranked 10th in
the nation and I was receiving attention from schools like Loyola, Drake, and
Stetson (a small D1 in Daytona beach). I
truly enjoyed high school soccer, but academy began to take too much out of me.
I was Spring break my senior year I got benched and became extremely frustrated
with my new role on the team. I did what any immature, cocky high school kid
would do, I quit and gave up scholarship offers from Stetson and Drake, as well
as the opportunity to play for Loyola’s D1 team and walk on at the University
of Kentucky.
I decided to go to my community college for a year and then
transfer out as all the schools I had applied to were soccer schools. I was
miserable living at home without my friends, but I ended up transferring to the
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. While I have enjoyed my time here,
joining a fraternity, and continuing soccer playing for the Illinois Men’s Club
Soccer team, I frequently wish that I pursued the opportunities that were right
in front of me and continued playing soccer at the collegiate D1 level. I
believe by joining a fraternity I have gained valuable friendships,
experiences, and skills that I could not gain anywhere else. I have become a
man, but the life style of the fraternity is in complete contrast with my life
style when playing at the highest level of soccer. I would not necessarily call
this a bad thing, but I loved soccer more than anything else. I miss it more
and more every day and regret not continuing and putting in the effort
necessary to become successful and reach the levels I should have played at.
I believe my decision came from the thought process that “good
things come to those that wait”. Yes, great things have come since then, but I
wish I had realized that the marginal utility I received from competitive
soccer far outweighed anything that the fraternity, the club team, or anything
at UIUC could do for me. It was a haven for me. I believed if I went to
community college, saved money, and worked, only good things would come. I was
depressed for a while at community college, things are a total 360 now, but yet
I still think about what if with soccer.
I believe that being a good citizen and “good things come
out to those who wait” are actually the same thing. I believed that if I would
be a “good citizen” and wait before I went away I would benefit more because I
was being smarter than the average student who goes to Iowa and pays $45,000 a
year for a degree that will net them $40,000 when they get out of school, drowning
in debt. Of course, I saved thousands of dollars, but soccer had already been
paying for a majority of my school as well as my academics. I regret not continuing
soccer and wish I could change the past, but just like anything you live and
learn. Opportunities will always present themselves and I think our biggest
challenge in life is ensuring we make the correct decisions when faced by them.
Your post glommed onto the expression - good things come to those who wait - but missed the essential component of opportunism - that somebody else is harmed by the opportunistic behavior. In other words, opportunism has an ethical dimension to it that you really didn't speak about.
ReplyDeleteFrom my perch I cannot comment about the wisdom of going to college on a soccer scholarship or not. But I do understand something about regret in making life choices, as a general matter. There really is no safety play on that. But one might ask, did you fully understand the implications of your choice at the time you made it. I'm not sure whether you did.
The things that happened to you leading up to your benching are not explained well in this piece. You said that academy was taking too much out of you. There probably was a lot going on packed into that sentence. It would be good to unpack it some. Was academy different that year than the year before? Were there new players on the team that you had to compete with for playing time? Were other things going on in your personal life? I really can't tell from here.
What does seem clear from your post is that you were angry so responded in anger rather than in a thoughtful way. Everybody gets angry now and then. Sometimes very much so. I find it quite a struggle to manage. But I've learned enough to not make important judgments when I'm angry. If you've learned that, it is a big lesson to master.
Let me close with a lesson that is still in front of you - to become a more careful reader. Opportunism and opportunities are perhaps something one might confuse. But if you are to really be an adult, you figure out which is which and do that via your own investigation.
I did not understand the implications of my action, I do have regrets at times but do not believe I truly regret it because I am extremely happy with where I am in life. I was benched not because I was not good enough, but because my team was very political in terms of coaching. Who they liked as people seemed to be the players that started.
ReplyDeleteAcademy was very different the year before, most players played high school in the Fall and then academy in the Spring, but a new rule changed this the year I moved up to the academy. There were a few new players, but in terms of competition, I was on equal playing fields with them. I had a girlfriend at the time, she may have caused some sort of mental issues that translated at the time..high school first loves will always cause problems because we are young and immature.
I did take a huge lesson from this, control my anger and realize the intentions that my actions will actually bring.