One of the common things Legacy athletes hear from their coaches is “what will your legacy be?” What that means is what will you be remembered for for your sport? 1, 5, 10, 20 years from now, what will your coaches say about you and what will the plaque on the wall say about your season and how well your team did?
I spent four years in the Legacy soccer program, spending two on varsity playing goalkeeper. For the longest time I thought the “legacy” I would leave would be to be part of the group that made it to the playoffs, which we hadn’t done since 2011. My senior year that completely changed.
Admittedly, I’m not the greatest keeper in the world. I know, shocker. I don’t think I’d even give myself best keeper at Legacy High School. But I hope that my contributions off of the field mattered more than the ones I could’ve made on the field. I’d like to be remembered as the kid that worked as hard as he could, even when I wasn’t given a starting spot on the team.
Of course some days I got discouraged and felt like giving up. I almost left the team my junior year because of my frustrations. As I mentioned in my blog about nearly losing my job, “the best stories are the ones of determination and perseverance.” I have tried my best to keep that attitude in all facets of my life. Never give up on what you stand for and what you hope to accomplish.
We self collapsed at the end of my senior season and missed out on playoffs yet again. Honestly, I wasn’t nearly as heartbroken as I thought I would be. I had worked hard enough in journalism, my job and the several other projects I was involved in to have something else to fall onto. I remember the last game seeing my teammates laying out on the turf at Newsom stadium, crying. For them, soccer was everything. I’m grateful that my life flourished outside of soccer and I had other things to pass the time with.
I hope to have been a role model for the underclassmen and a leader by example even when I didn’t get the result I wanted. That’s the legacy I hope to have left. Trophies in a display case don’t matter anywhere near as much as life lessons that set you on the right course.
