It is More Than a Hobby

There are three questions I usually get asked when I meet someone for the first time. “Where do you live,” is quickly followed by, “Where did you go to high school?” but I only get asked this by certain people. Those are the easy questions to answer. I dish out the answers to those questions with no problem. After comments or other questions about going to an all-girls private high school, the next question is always the hardest for me to answer. “What are you favorite hobbies?”
I have many hobbies, but soccer is my favorite. This question is hard because, to me, soccer is much more than just a hobby or a game, it is my life and it is hard to convey that to others when I get asked that.
As long as I can remember, there has been a soccer ball at my feet. Ever since I played in my first game at age three, I was in love. Anytime I played outside, I usually had a soccer ball at my feet. At recess, there would be a big soccer game with a mixture of grade levels, but usually I was the only girl playing.
I was first introduced to the United States Women’s National Team (USWNT) in 1995, and I was hooked. Watching the team win the first ever Gold Medal for Women’s Soccer in 1996, and then later watching them win the 1999 Women’s World Cup in penalty kicks made me realize what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Just like any young girl who followed the National Team, I looked up to Mia Hamm. But it was always much more than that. I wanted to follow in her footsteps.
By the time I was seven, I had read just about every book ever written about Mia Hamm. At that age I set the goals for the rest of my life. I had planned on attending the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill with a full-ride soccer scholarship. I would get to spend four years at the top women’s soccer college in the nation, have the honor of wearing the Tar Heel uniform, and playing under one of the greatest female soccer coaches of all time, Anson Dorrance. After winning four straight national titles at UNC, I planned on playing for the National Team with everybody I had looked up to forever, including the one person who has influenced my life the most, Mia Hamm.
That dream came to an end by about age thirteen, but I have never lost my passion for the game. I am done playing for now due to injuries, but I am still just as crazy for the game. That passion has allowed me to have some of the greatest experiences of my life. I have met some of the greatest female soccer players in the world and I have gotten to see many professional games thanks to new Women’s Professional Soccer league. I have no idea what my life would be like today had I not been introduced to soccer and had the role models I did growing up.