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.