Day 11 -- June 27, 2013

In the time since I’ve been writing this blog about my experiences during camp, I’ve received a lot of
questions from family, friends, and coaches who want to know more about the team. Therefore, in today's entry I will to answer some of the most frequently asked questions. If you have other questions, please write them in the comments and I will attempt to answer them in another post.

1. Are you currently trying out for the team?  Or are you already on the team?

Although I have not played any international games, I am considered to be part of the player pool because I’m old enough to travel and have been to multiple camps. This is my ninth camp.

2. What other teams train in Chula Vista? 

There are many other teams that train here, including men’s and women’s rugby, track and field, beach volleyball, BMX, and archery. One team that came in for a short time was the women’s alpine ski team, who were here to do some offseason conditioning, which is basically running and strength training. We were lucky enough to scrimmage with them yesterday morning.

After a scrimmage with the US Women's Ski Team

3.  What's the average age of the other players?

The average age of the players on the US Paralympic soccer team is about 24, with the youngest on the team being me (16), and the oldest being the Captain, Josh McKinney (33 ish). I will try to do a profile of Josh in a later entry.

4. What qualifies you to be a member of the US Paralympic soccer team?

In order to be a member of this team, you need to have either Cerebral Palsy (CP), which is a condition caused by nerve damage. CP usually results from hydrocephalus (water on the brain) or a stroke. Another way you can become a member of the team is by suffering a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). This means any sort of severe blow to the head, ranging from an extremely bad car accident to being hit by a bomb in a tank while serving in Afghanistan. We have players with both types of TBI injuries and players with CP on our team. I have CP, and have had it since I was a baby.

5.  How long are you going to at the camp?

During the school year, training camps only last about a week, but because we have a tournament in Barcelona on July 23th, we will be here for almost four weeks, from June 17th to July 13th. This is the longest camp of my career.

6. How many players are on the team? 

There are approximately thirty players in the player pool. Each one of those players are in contention a spot o the traveling team. However, only fourteen get to travel for a tournament at any given time. My goal is to be one of those fourteen at the end of camp, heading to the tournament in Barcelona.

7.  Does you play soccer every day, all day?  Do you get to do anything else?

We have training twice a day, from 9-11 in the morning and 4-6 in the afternoon. On some days we have weight training instead of soccer practice. In between training sessions we are free to do whatever we want. Some of my favorite things to do in my free time include, reading, watching TV, shooting hoops, or just taking a nap.

The basketball hoop behind the AT&T Center

Day 9 -- June 25, 2013

I am officially a third of the way through the longest camp of my career on the US Paralympic Soccer Team. At this point in the camp, we are too far away from the end of camp to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but far enough into it that we are starting to feel fatigued. Therefore, tonight I’d like to talk about motivation.

Josh McKinney

The ability to find motivation somewhere deep within yourself when the lights aren’t on and nobody is watching is what separates the truly great athletes from the mediocre ones. Anyone can work hard and push themselves when the pressure’s on. However, if you don’t work hard in the times in between the big games, you won’t be ready to take your opportunity and it will pass you by. Practice today showed me exactly what it will take if I want to become an important member of this team. We played a 45 minute scrimmage with a two touch limit, and the captain, Josh McKinney, put me in as a midfielder, which meant that I got a lot of touches, but at the same time I had to do a ton of running. The running wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t also have to deal with getting pushed around by the older members of the team. For me, that’s what is really tiring. I’ll push back, but they’re so much bigger than me that all it really does is make them angry.

A battle in the middle

In order to be successful playing against people like that, I need to be sharp mentally. On offense I need to see the holes in the defense before they open up, anticipate where there will be time and space to play, and most importantly, always know where I’m going with my next pass. On defense I need to anticipate runs into the box, close down players with the ball, and cut off the opposing teams passing lanes. Tonight I was able to find the motivation necessary to do each and every one of those things, and my team was able to come out on top with a 5-3 victory. I had one assist for one of the goals. Above all, the most important thing that I was able to take from tonight’s practice was the knowledge that when the going gets tough, I have the ability to dig deep and get a result, which is exactly what I’m going to have to do if I want to make the squad for Barcelona. All in all, today was a pretty good day.

Day 7 -- June 23, 2013

Today was another wonderful day at the US Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista. Practice this morning was focused on getting lots of touches without burning out our legs too much. In order to do this, Coach Hoffman had us go on a twenty minute jog around the training ground to warm up, and then we played two on two soccer tennis for the rest of training. In the game of soccer tennis, you get three hits per side, one bounce in between each hit, and the goal is to work on touch and communication in a small game setting. My partner for the games was Chris Ahrens, a 29 year old veteran who is not the slightest bit hesitant to tell me exactly what I’m doing wrong. However, as negative as he may seem at times, I still love to play with him because he is an excellent communicator who possesses a very high soccer IQ, and he commands the team with excellent leadership skills which I hope to pick up by the time that I am one of the old veterans on the team. Out of the three games he and I played this morning as a team, we won two and lost one. His resiliency and never say die attitude are some of the other reasons I love to play with him. Both were on full display this morning. We were down 10-4 in the second game of the day, but he wouldn’t let us give in, and we fought back to win 15-12. That was easily the highlight of this morning’s training.

Chris Ahrens (on the right)

Tonight we had a congratulations dinner for Chris at an Italian Restaurant in San Diego. Chris is leaving camp to get married in Massachusetts. Being sixteen, I felt totally out of place as the older members of the team all provided Chris and his fiancée Pam with marriage advice, so I had to be content with simply listening. If I was back home in Boulder, this would have been very easy for me. As the older brother I’m used to serving as the quiet mediator for my brother’s energy. However, out here I’m the younger brother on the team, and it was extremely hard to sit quietly for two hours while the adults all talked among themselves. Thankfully I had my Chicken Parmesan and Crème Brule keep me busy. All things considered, I am extremely happy for Chris, but at the same time I realize that I definitely don’t want to grow up too fast. I’m just going to live life every day, and enjoy the experiences as they come.  Right now I’m living the good life.

Day 5 -- June 21, 2013

Days like today remind me why I fell in love with this game in the first place. But it also reminds me not to take any of the amazing things that happen to me for granted, but I’ll get to that part later.

First I’d like to talk about training this afternoon. Today we brought in the Navy to scrimmage. They are preparing for qualifying matches in Azerbaijan in two weeks. Practicing with the Navy is always a great experience because playing with them forces us to play at a much faster pace than we would if we just scrimmaged among ourselves. As I was warming up for practice, I met a member of the Navy team whose name was also Jackson. He thought that my training and competing for a spot with the US Paralympic Team at such a young age was really cool, and he also said that he had been watching me warm up and he thought that I looked like I could really play. At this point I had already decided that I liked this guy, but then he took his cleats out of his bag. We had the exact same ones. Brothers in all but blood, right?

Jackson and Jackson

Same cleats !

Coach Hoffman put us on the same team, and we figured out how to play together very quickly. He was so fast that I could play a ball ten yards ahead of him and he would be on top of it almost instantaneously. We were only allowed two touches in the scrimmage, but we were still able to utilize his incredible speed, albeit not for full field runs. By the end of the session we had combined for five goals, with me getting three goals and two assists. The game of soccer is great in this aspect; it brings people together from all walks of life to enjoy the hard work that it takes to play, but also the satisfaction of success.

Tonight was also extremely humbling. One of the guys, Adam, left the team, maybe for good, due to the fact that he has had too many concussions. What was truly humbling about this was the fact that he is only 21. Seeing Adam’s teary and slightly shocked face made me think.  I have no concrete idea how long I myself will be on the team. The only thing I can control is how well prepared I am to take my chance when it comes my way, because as human beings we are never guaranteed more than one. All things considered, I’m truly blessed to have gotten this far and tonight reminded me to never take anything for granted, because if I do, once it’s gone I’ll wonder what happened.

Day 2 -- June 18, 2013

This morning we did fitness testing in order to get a baseline for our fitness at the start of camp. Fitness testing this morning was 20 meter sprints, then a cone drill to test our agility, and finally we did SPARQ testing to gauge our endurance. SQARQ testing is running twenty meters there and back, and then resting for ten seconds before going again. The hard part about this was that the pace increased every single time. I got to level 21, which was very good for my first time. My goal is to get between 25 and 30 by the end of camp.

Today was Taco Tuesday, which is everyone’s favorite day at the training center. They have a make your own taco station, taco salads made to order, and pork enchiladas. Everything is absolutely delicious.

This afternoon we played a scrimmage with the entire team. The scrimmage consisted of two small goals on either side, with the field split into three sections. We were only allowed a maximum of two touches, and you had to score from your attacking third of the field. My team was down after the first fifteen minute period, but we were able to fight back and we ended up winning 6-5. I scored twice and got one assist.

Watching the game in the dining hall

Tonight we watched the USA vs Honduras game as a team in the dining hall. While we were watching we had to take notes on everything that the US was doing, from their shape to their plan of attack to how they defended in the backfield. Thankfully our boys were able to get a 1-0 win thanks to a clinical finish from Jozy Altidore in the 73rd minute. The fact that they were able to get a win means that they have all but locked up their bid to qualify for the World Cup in Rio de Janeiro in 2014. This win also takes some of the pressure off of them for their upcoming qualifier against Mexico in July.

Our packet for taking notes

More game watching

After the game everyone headed back to their rooms to get some sleep before another big day at the US Paralympic Soccer training camp.

A walkway back to the residential area

Some of the athlete housing at the OTC

Day 1 -- June 17, 2013

I woke up this morning at 5 o’clock wired on adrenaline despite the fact that I got only three hours of sleep last night. Every camp is the same. I’m so excited and nervous the night before my flight that it’s a miracle if I get any sleep at all.

Window seat !

View of San Diego on approach

My official traveling uniform

One of my favorite aspects of the traveling is getting to wear my red US Soccer polo. For me the polo is a symbol that signifies all the hard work I’ve put in to become the best player I can be. Another aspect of traveling that I like is the feeling of independence. When I travel to San Diego, it’s just me by myself and, although I love my parents very much, these camps are a very welcome break.


When I arrived at the airport, there was a USA Olympic van waiting curbside to bring me to the Olympic Training Center. When I got to the OTC, it was only 10:30 and I had almost 6 hours to kill before practice, which I spent walking around the grounds and hanging out in the AT&T Center. The AT&T Center is basically just a place for athletes to relax and unwind between training sessions. The AT&T Center has tons of things to do. There are two pool tables, a ping pong table, foosball, a Wii, and Xbox, and a big screen TV right in the center of the room. There’s even a basketball court out back.

When it was finally close to practice time, I walked over to the trainers to get my uniform, but he was waiting with some extra surprises. We were given new cleats, red and black Nike Tiempos, and blue and white running shoes. Thank You to U.S. Soccer!

New practice uniform

New Nike Tiempos!

My home for the next four weeks

At 3:30 I headed down to the practice field for the first practice of the month, which mentally is always the hardest. Practice today consisted of soccer tennis, in which two teams of six players kick a ball across the net, one bounce per side. After warm ups, we worked on a simple passing drill to kick off the camp, and then we played a small sided scrimmage. What was special about this scrimmage was that you could only take a maximum of two touches, which forces you to think quickly with the ball at your feet.

After practice it’s time for dinner. Dinner tonight was pasta with marinara sauce, grilled vegetables, and scalloped potatoes. It was delicious. At 9 o’clock everyone goes off to they’re separate rooms to wind down for the night and get ready for the next day of practices. When I’m here, I get to live my dream of being a national team soccer player, and I’m enjoying every minute of it.