I played soccer from first grade through 7th grade. I played in the local house leagues, where they pair your team by neaighborhoods/zip code so you generally played with the same kids each year. So I have a couple of stories to share with you all.
First and foremost my first season I lucked out and was on a team of 6 year old phenoms. We were a very athletic team for our ages. We all played multiple sports and just played very well together.
Unfortunately that season was one of few that I played on a "good" team. From 2nd grade thtough 6th grade I was on possibly the worst house league team in Richmond Striker League history. What made it worse was that my best friend played on possibly the bet team during that time frame. We were easily the misfits or bad news bears of the league, but we couldn't even bribe the other team to lose
Also note that I played two seasons a year fall and spring.
I remember playing on a boy and girl team for two seasons, and allways regretted having to swap out with one of the girls so that eveyrone could play. I was just too damned selfish as a kid. I just rmeember sitting on the sideline thinking about how much better I was than her. It was pretty pathetis, even for an 8 year old.
At the age of ten I got red carded and kicked out of a game for swearing, I said "shit" on the field and then yelled something along the same lines to our interim coach at the time. I was only 10 and now I can believe how stupid I was becoming at the age of ten.
However, not all the stories are bad, I made a lot of good friends playing. It also kept my chubby little ass in decent health growing up. So while I was chubby I could allways hang athletically with every other boy in grade school. I was very proud and almost conceited of that fact.
Spring of 7th grade was definately a banner year for me. Puberty had finally kicked in and I had hit my first and sadly only major growth spourt, growing nearly 6 inches in a few short months. It made me one of the bigger kids on the field and it definatley paid off. I could kick farther and run faster because of a longer stride. We actually had a winning team again. We won most of our games, got into the playoffs and made the finals. I really enjoyed themore physical aspects of playing. Running and tackling(not illegally of course) and just going crazy out there. Because of my size I became a focal point of the team, of course this wasn't the best for my young ego, but I'm much more wiser now. We lost in the final game, in a shootout, but it was so much fun.
I had decided then that soccer wasn't going to be in my future anymore though. I had gotten much bigger than most of the players, and eventhough I had a longer stride I wasn't quick enough to play with the majority of guys. That and I started to enjoy the physical contact a lot. So I went to Amercian Football instead and that's a whole nother story.
Why wouls I like to win the contest? Well I hoped you enjoyed my little anecdotes. Soccer really helped me learn a lot about teamwork, even more so in hindsight. Soccer kept me healthy growiing up and soccer was a big part of my life. I'm just happy I got to type even a small inkling of what was a big part of my youth. Winning or Losing never mattered back then as long as the team mother brought a good little debbie snack and capri suns!
No seriously, what other sport did you get rewarded like that even if you lost?
