Do hard things
A little bit about the decade I played soccer
I played on a losing soccer team for most of my life.
I started playing organized soccer in the local community rec league in first grade. By the time I was 8, I was playing Club ball with many of the same people I started pee wee soccer with a couple of years earlier. I played on that club soccer team with a mostly consistent group of girls through the beginning of high school. Because we all went to high school in similar-ish areas, we went from playing with these girls to playing against them. There was one person- Cynthia- who I started with in first grade and played with through to high school.
In all those years, I played goalie. I loved being a goalie. For many people, it's the position of their nightmares, so I got a lot of playing time. For many years, I was the only goalie. Other than the occasional hand or wrist injury that took me out of the goal and into the defense, I only wanted to be a goalie, finding the on-the-field play to be a lot less enticing.
Goalie is an exciting position for a lot of reasons, but I was a better goalie because I was on a mostly losing team. In the years we were great, we'd regularly crush teams 7-0 or 5-0. When we were good, I was bored. The games were engaging in the years when the team was terrible- when we're playing a level up against teams with more money, resources, coaching, and talent. We'd lose 1-2, but I'd have defended 20, 30, or 40 shots on goal.
In the years when we lost a lot, I often took it personally. I remember sitting in the backseat of my Mom's White GMC Envoy in the parking lot of A.P. Morris, crying hysterically after a loss when my mom asked if I wanted to do this still, given the emotional anguish it was causing me every week. It took maturity and reflection to recognize that the ball truly does move through 10 other players before it gets to the goalie, but to twelve-year-old Emilie that was too much for me to understand.
And my answer to my Mom was an unabashed yes.
I couldn't articulate it then, but I now recognize that I liked the challenge of doing hard things. The price I paid was a loss and the emotional pain that came with it (and compounded exponentially with each additional loss), but what I learned was worth so much more. I learned to put on my uniform and play the next game, planning to win anyway. I learned to defend more, anticipate better, and became an all-around better goalie. I learned to encourage my teammates and that there is value in doing things you don't want to do. I pushed people not to place blame but to take ownership of their mistakes and outline how they would improve.
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We had two endurance days back to back when I was at Orange Theory over the weekend. At minute 20 of running on the treadmill, Coach April challenged us to dig deeper. Now is when you get better, she said.
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When things are going great, they're great. I love the days when everything goes smoothly, and there are no hiccups. I wish I had more of those.
But when things are hard are when we get better. When it feels like you can't catch a break, when it's shot after shot on goal, when you're 0-10 for the season, that's when you're getting better. That's when you're pushing yourself to do hard things. It would be much easier to quit and say that the losing team is someone else's problem. But, if you're growing, if you're getting better.... does the score matter? does the record matter? Why were you there in the first place? Was it for love of the game?
I loved playing soccer with those girls. Jessica, Rebecca, Sarah, Cynthia, Johanna, Emely, Kayla, Heather, Savannah, Aisha, Julie, Grace, Barbara, Ana Paula, Jennifer, Jessie... In the 10-plus years, I played organized soccer, those are just a few of the names that stick out. I haven't had Facebook in many years now (since 2019?), so I don't know how to look up those girls, and I don't know where they are. But, I know that I learned to do hard things alongside them and found the emotional roller coaster of it all to be the best part.