Reflective Essay: Why I Joined The Color Guard Team

I was having mixed emotions; I was anxious because it would be the last time cheering with people I love, and I was afraid of messing up. I looked at my friend Landry and said, “We got this!” She looked at me and smiled. The music started and I began the routine which I had done millions of times before. After we finished our routine, the parents, the athletes, and my coaches met up so we could discuss how we thought we did.

Showing grit is a common thing for all people in sports, but one that has really stuck to me was middle school football to now. When seventh grade football started, Coach was looking at kids for certain positions and he said my name first. I instantly perked up ready to get any position on the team, but when he said I was playing second team center I was crushed. I never played on the line before. I was tall and skinny, not big and bulky.

I had been working hard and really felt like a part of the team. The first real challenge I faced was trying to live in the shadow of my older brothers. Who both had success in their running careers. It was the third race of the year and I was running in the varsity race against our conference rival. To me, this race was a chance to prove I was an important member of the team and could possibly lead the team as captain in the future.

My church plays in the Turkey Bowl Flag Football Tournament every November. This was not only a time to bond with my youth group, but to also create friendships with other church teams. However, there was a problem: my team consisted of players from age 13-20; however, the 13 year olds had little-to-no flag football experience. Consequently, they got less playtime and slowly became discouraged However, as a leader I wanted to show them otherwise: I coached them, helped them, and give them a new perspective on the game.

That’s why it was hard at first is because I was used to the way my old teachers taught things and everything was so different for me. When I was little I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be. At first I wondered why I even tried out for the team because I had to be at the school for practice at six in the morning, Monday through Saturday. But I kept telling myself that change is good and that things might be hard but things will always work itself out no matter how hard it is. So to this day I’m so glad that I kept telling myself that

Tough Hope Imagine you want to make a team but you didn 't make it well that happened to me. This is the time I went through tough hope. After I didn 't make the team I practiced really hard to make the team next year.

With being at that academy and around that competitive nature I learnt perseverance, sportsmanship, as well as how to stay humble. Samuel Johnson once said “Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance”. With being the youngest on the team, I was passed over multiple times for ice time, sitting out of important games due to the fact that I was the youngest and the newest member to the team. When you get constantly looked over time after time, it takes a toll on

Now I knew almost all of the coaches except the freshmen. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew we were going to come out and work hard every practice. All I wanted to do was impress the coaches. I had an advantage over all my teammates, I kinda knew what they expected.

That was a decision never regretted in my life, as it showed me that I wasn’t alone, that their were others like me, and able to make friends within my team, which in turn taught the truth of this world. Days had passed by, as my team and I were studying, working hard, and overall hanging out with each other. And then, the day of the competition was finally among us. However, I was not nervous, I was ready, confident that we would win. However, that changed as I entered Blair High School and finally meeting all of the other schools that we were up against.

I came back with a team that was craving a championships and a positive season because we were a good team this year and we all believed we could make it all the way as champions. Our soccer team overall record was 7-7-1, We achieved only one goal that year and that was to have a positive season but we didn't achieve our second goal which was to be champions. We could have been able to make it to the playoffs but we had students that were ineligible when we had crucial games to play and ended up losing those crucial games. If we had no players ineligible we would have achieved our second goal and possibly would have been champions of the Tri Valley league. Senior night which was our last game of the season we played against skyline which if you didn't know were the champions last year and killed us last year.

My eighth-grade year, I tried out for the school’s co-ed soccer team and was confident that I would make the team. During the three hard days of try-outs, I pushed myself to improve each day and received several compliments from the coaches. On the last day, the head coach pulled me aside to tell me

My senior year I decided to tryout for the soccer team. I thought I had a pretty good chance in making the soccer team since I’ve had some experience playing soccer, and I thought I was pretty good. Anyway, I ended up making the team, and their were some times I felt like quitting because we did ran so much, but luckly I had my friends who motivated

I would help encourage my classmen to do the same and this pointer allowed two other freshmen make the team. My sophmore year I transferred to a different school and this caused me to start over on another basketball team. I made the varsity squad as a starter because I would help motivate and teach the other girls how to do drills and basic fundamentals. My coaches assigned me as a team

This was my first year on a varsity team and only my second year playing soccer competitively, so joining the team was especially daunting. But, outside of practice hours (4-5 days per week for 2-3 hours), I practiced at the park and trained with my cousin, who played soccer in college, to improve my skills. I even played in the house, which my mother did not appreciate. But, I genuinely wanted to get better and pull my weight and be part of the team. The team gave me a sense of community and pushed me to persevere in the face of adversity.

Growing up, I spent most of my time playing sports and trying to stay active as much as possible. As I got older, I became more serious with field hockey, and I was determined to make the varsity team my junior year of high school. All summer I spent working on my stick skills on the field, and my endurance in the gym in order to do everything I could to make the varsity squad. When tryouts started in the end of August, I hadn’t performed the way I wanted to, and girls I thought had no chance of making the team, played so well over the three days. However, I was hopeful I still had a shot on the varsity roster.