Exhausted and winded the game was over and everything was still. My team just won to get seventeenth place in our, fifteen and under national championship for lacrosse. As I looked back on all the time I wanted to quit put down my stick, stop working hard, and give up but I pushed through.

In the fifth grade I started playing lacrosse and after the first practice I came home tired, bored, and not in a good mood. I wanted to quit because I was terrible at lacrosse I looked stupid I felt out of my element. So I went up to my dad and told him,

“Dad, lacrosse is too hard and I want to quit!” my dad quickly replayed,

“Sorry if you don’t play lacrosse you are going back to baseball, and you have to finish this season you have to stay committed to the team.” I was furious at my dad I was just thinking about why couldn’t I just quit it’s not like they needed me on the teams my mind was full of thoughts and I was confused about this whole ordeal.

Still thinking about quitting lacrosse I couldn’t stop to think about why I am playing lacrosse, my hate for baseball. I could still remember the boredom of baseball because I played in the outfield and at that age few people could hit the ball that far so I could sit down and no one would care and any sport where you can eat, and sit down is a boring sport and when I would say that baseball was boring people would look at me funny like I was a alien or something. I felt like I wasn’t normal because I was always told amerces sport was baseball and it was Americas past time. I didn’t just not like it I hated it! I couldn’t stand it, I couldn’t watch it or play it. I just remembered why I quit baseball in the first thing and I would do anything to get a way from baseball.

Now remembering why I quit I could remember the first lacrosse practice. How I wasn’t the best on the team and how I didn’t realize how much effort I had to put into lacrosse. I thought it was going to be a long spring season. But I was being a whiny baby at practice and I should be working my butt off so that I get a lot better and really I didn’t want to hate lacrosse because I was bad at it.

Well it became real to me the day after my dad told me that I could not quit, that I needed to practice harder and longer so that I could get good at lacrosse. My coach said to me that I needed to practice on my own to get better a throwing and caching, but when I heard this on my first day was all I don’t need to do that, why would someone practice on there own, that is ridiculous. As I thought about this I was till thinking it was ridiculous, but I really needed to do this so that I could excel myself. So I went out side and I ran down to the elementary school down my street, and I found a long tall wall and I took my stick and some balls and started throwing the ball against the wall. It also was a hot spring day and the sun was just pounding on me like a drum. I knew if I quit practicing than I would never get good at lacrosse and I wanted to be amazing so I needed to do this. So I kept going and I was extremely tired when I ran back put there was something different I felt accomplished I did something under my own will to get better at something. I did this everyday of the lacrosse season, and I was hard for me to do this but I pulled through it to get better and improve my game.

With this new found attitude of working on my own time to excel myself I started applying this to everything I did lacrosse, school, football everything. For the first time in my life I felt happy about what I was doing and my improvements. I studied harder worked longer, and my grades show all my hard work going form C’s to B’s and even some A’s.

After my first year of playing lacrosse I definitely noticed my improvements I made it on the varsity team as a starter in seventh grade and was a captain of my eighth grade year. All of toughs things were great but my greatest accomplishment was when I was asked to play for the Houston all-star team. When I made that team I felt like all my work and effort was worth it, but the work was not done that was for sure.

During the summer I practiced with the team almost everyday for six hours in the one hundred degree heat and it was exhausting and some days I felt like dying I was so tired, but I was worth it. Then we went to Baltimore to play agents some of the best teams in the nation. I didn’t feel intimidated by these teams because even though they are the best of the best we were a good team and I knew we could hang with these guys and because the whole summer my coach would ramble about how we could compete with the east coast teams he would say, “Ya’ll are the beast team in Texas and in Texas we have the biggest I mean we need to get the biggest hits and the biggest scores and get the biggest wins!” and I thought he was just trying to us motivated but after hearing it through out the summer I started to believe it and take it to heart. We played ok some mistakes and missed opportunities but we got into the losing bracket. On the bright side we could get seventieth place if we won the whole bracket. After countless games of wins we made it to the last game against Team Vermont a very good team, and I had the best game of my life with three goals a nd two assist we won fifteen to two to get seventeenth.

After the game I felt like my body was going to give out, like I was going to collapse, but at the same time I felt overjoyed. This made my think back to all the times I wanted to give up but I pushed through it and I couldn’t stop thinking if my dad would have let me quit. I wouldn’t played lacrosse, I would have never experienced working on my own to make myself better and I just plane and simple I wouldn’t be the same person because through lacrosse I learned leadership, determination. So after the celebration I went up to my dad and said “thank you for everything” and
He quickly replied,” For what”
“Thank you for letting me play lacrosse”, I said and he just gave me a hug. I found what I love to do and it’s all because my dad pushed me to accomplish something, to keep a commitment to the team and without that one act by my dad I wouldn’t have played in Baltimore for a national championship. I just felt like my dads finally noticed what I was doing and what I love to do playing lacrosse. If I could do it over again I wouldn’t have it and other way.