Learning team work from soccer team in high school

This story is about what I learned and realized by playing soccer with my teammates in high school year. Since I was young, I understood some English words such as; goal, foul, tackle, shoot, and stadium, even though I couldn’t even speak English. The reason I could understood those words is I love soccer so much. Since I was young, when other friends watched cartoons, played with toys, and studied Korean and English vocabularies, I played soccer. I have watched so many soccer games, and gathered a lot of soccer uniforms. I even have played soccer games since I was in elementary school. At that time, I couldn’t have known that soccer would teach one important thing to me in high school.
I came to United States, when I was in 9th grade. At that time, I was so scared of living in States. There were a few Koreans in my high school, but still I could not adapt to the unfamiliar culture and people’s life. One day, I saw students playing soccer in common ground. I just looked at them, and I said one sentence, “Americans are really not good at soccer”. I just realized that if I try out to be a member of soccer, I can make many friends and Americans will not see me as a poor Asian. Therefore, the next few days, I went to try out. I kept thinking of shooting, passing, and dribbling. I was so excited to be a member of varsity team easily. However, just one practice totally broke my spirit.
During the first try out, coach said to all the players. “You should run 1 mile in 6 minutes”. I just got shocked. “What? In 6 minutes?” I just ran, and I got 8 minutes. I puked. Are we in soccer try out or cross country try out? Next time, I hardly made it. The time was 5 minutes 56 seconds. Thank god. After that practice, everything was easy. I was good at shooting, passing, and driving. Finally I became a member of varsity.
After I played a few season games, and scored in the state champion leagues, many people started to recognize me. Guys said, “What’s up”, and girls said, “Hey~”. Yes, this is what I imagined. However, I became so arrogant and lazy. My life and thinking changed in bad ways. I always arrived late to practice, did not run hard, and ignored the teamwork. I though one individual skill can easily beat one strong team. Gradually, I became a selfish guy.
There was one big ceremonial day for my high school. Our school soccer team went to semi-final in state champion ship. It was first time to go that far in 20th century. Over 500 students came to see that game. However, the weather in that day was cloudy and rainy. I did not know that some bad thing would happen to me. I was acting arrogant that day as well. I was not concentrated on practicing right before game. I predicted that our team would go final game. Finally, the game started. Noisy sounds from crowds boost me to run more and more. However, that day, I felt like my body and ground stick together like a magnet. I couldn’t move fast. The waterfalls kept interfere me to move forward. Suddenly, I made a mistake. Other team’s player kicked the ball, but it went into our goal after hitting my leg. I even couldn’t expected. Everyone was disappointed at me. It was first time that I was in that situation. I did not know what to do. I kept thinking of that scene during game. Time was running like that. Suddenly, I heard that referee whistled. Game was over. Other team was shouting, but our team was not moving like a sculpture. I did not know what to do. It was too hard to care my heart. It was my fault and I needed someone. However, suddenly crowds ran to all our soccer team members and hugged. Everyone said, “Good job guys. It was good game. We are so proud of you guys.” After someone hugged me and said, “You were amazing”, I just started to cry. All members cried, because we felt sorry to crowds and school. However, at that time, even though we lost the game, our ambition, school community, and one strong soccer teamwork already beat the other team. After that happened, I realized how team work and working hard in one community is more important than thinking of only myself.