One of my dreams has always been to be a sports star, or at least a role player on a fairly successful sports team. I halfway reached that during high school, but, honestly, who cares about cross-country/track besides the people that actually run, right? No one cares if you're a role-player, the 3rd guy on the high school cross-country team. Even if you finished out the best 1-2-3 combo in the state.
Another one of my dreams was to play soccer. I played until about 8th grade, when the games moved to Sundays. I loved soccer. I wasn't too bad at it. I was always kinda sad that the games moved to Sundays - I would have liked to see if I could have played high school. Still, the times that I would end up playing, whether I was in Italy or just pickup games here at school I loved it. I wanted to be on an intermural team, but I never knew the right guys who had a spot open on their team. With my graduation next April, I figured my chance was gone.
So when Jaren came up to me and said, "hey, we're starting a ward (a ward is the local unit of organization in the LDS church) guys' intermural soccer team...are you in?" I jumped at the chance. Awesome!
We set two goals for the team:
1. Win - it has been at least two years since a ward intermural team has won even a single game. (Personal note: I was not a part of any of those teams.)
2. Get as many girls to the games as possible.
We took #2 seriously. We went around to Relief Society and made announcements, telling them of this opportunity to give service and prepare to be a soccer mom. We talked ourselves up at Ward Prayer. We went around and personally invited pretty much every girl to come. It was awesome. A lot of skepticism, but we got some people to say they would come.
First game: 20 people. Orange slices at halftime. Chilled Caprisuns afterwards. Water. It was amazing!! So much fun. We were a little rusty - let in a couple of really bad goals. Jaren let the day with his 3 goals, however, and we managed to eke out a 3-3 tie. I played center defender most of the time. They didn't score while I was out there. I don't consider myself to be that good, but I am fairly fast and I understand where I need to position myself.
We followed that up with a number of announcements, thanking everyone for the support (we had like 20 girls at that game. How great is that.) and amazing treats, and getting everyone pumped for the next game. Are you a witness? Were you there to see the undefeated Guys Soccer Team? (luckily, not too many people figured out why we never said that we won, we just kept mentioning that we were undefeated)
During announcement time at Ward Prayer, I busted out my megaphone and started getting everyone to cheer. I felt like the Quarterback at a high school pep rally. Finally, as things continued, I hesitated...and, caught up in the moment, declared, "I am going to guarantee a victory this Tuesday!!!" Everyone cheered and went crazy. It was seriously great.
Of course, Tuesdays rolls around and all of a sudden there's a little bit of pressure. Can we win? I really wasn't worried, honestly. They hadn't scored with me playing defense yet (except for the really really bad goal that went through Scott's hands.) Why would they start now?
Final score - 5-2. We win!!! Ross scored 4 goals and Jaren added another. I had a really good game on defense - both goals happened right after I was substituted out of the game.
Better yet...we had like 35 people at this one. How great is that. It was so much fun! The fans made a tunnel for us after the game, I ran through it like three times.
Our team continues to get better, as people learn how to play soccer. Our next game is this Saturday, 12:00, on the Indoor Playing Fields. The question I have for you is:
Are you a Witness? Were you there to see it?
1 comment:
Intramural.
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