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.