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.