- Posts: 1
- Joined: Jan 04, 2016
- Mon Jan 04, 2016 10:46 am
#21459
Hi Dave/PowerScore Team,
I've been following your twitter feed religiously over the past week and I saw you were giving feedback on personal statements. I've pasted my personal statement below. In my opinion I feel its a little too long but I'm not sure where I can make cuts. Any feedback on it would be helpful!
The moment I step on the field and I’m standing under the lights I forget the world
around me. It’s just my teammates and I and we’re focused on the task in front of us; 80 minutes
of soccer. 80 minutes until we are named National Champions and 80 minutes until all of the
hours we put in will finally become worth it. The only thing standing in our way was the team
opposite us.
Getting to where we were as a team took years of practice and months of conditioning but
getting to where I was as a player took a lifetime. By the time I was 15 I had been playing soccer
for 12 years and I loved it. I looked forward to practices, games and running. I was one of the
best players on every team I had played on. That’s when a few girls and I joined the best U16
girls team in the Jacksonville area. Making the team was easy; starting and playing for the team
was an entirely different story.
When your talents are being juxtaposed against another girl who is equally as talented as
you are it’s the little things that stand out. “Your foot skills are lacking, you aren’t fast enough,
you aren’t in good enough shape, you’re not seeing the field, you’re not seeing the best pass” are
the words I heard over and over again. Being good wasn’t good enough anymore; I needed to be
perfect and I sat the bench until I could figure that out.
To some people that could be demoralizing. When you go from being the best player on
the team to a player who is mediocre and sits the bench it changes your mindset. I started to think
I wasn’t good enough. I would never be good enough to compete on this level. I thought about
quitting soccer for good when a teammate sent me this quote: “Somewhere behind the athlete you've
become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in
love with the game and never looked back... play for her.” – Mia Hamm. It changed my entire
perspective.
I stayed late at practice every night working with my coach on my foot skills, I ran extra
outside of practice to get into better shape, I did everything I had to do in order to get a starting
spot. My hard work eventually began to show. I started some games, but if I made mistakes I
was back on the bench. I kept working to be perfect; to be the best player on the field and the
player I knew I could be.
Finally, state cup semi-finals: the final four. We were playing the best team in the state of
Florida and nervous was understatement. My coach named the starting line-up, I was named left
back, and finally everything fell into place from there. Our team played with such cohesion you
would have thought we had been playing together for years not just couple months. We came out
with a 1-0 win and moved on to the state championship. But the highlight of that night was not
the win but when my coach, the man I worked so hard with for so many hours over the past few
months, told me that after watching me play that night he could confidently say that “I was not
just one of the best defensive players in the state of Florida but one of the best defensive players
in the entire country.”
Fast forward a year later to Nationals. Playing soccer with this group of girls had never
felt so natural to me. We communicated effectively, played efficiently, and won effortlessly. The
only thing standing in our way from a perfect year was the team standing opposite us in the
championship game. But with the last year of countless hours of practice, conditioning and
games behind us nothing was going to stop us from winning this game. Our team evolved to
become the most talented we could be; the best in the country. I evolved to become the most
talented player I could be; the player I knew I could be-the one who learned to play for the little
girl that fell in love with the game
I've been following your twitter feed religiously over the past week and I saw you were giving feedback on personal statements. I've pasted my personal statement below. In my opinion I feel its a little too long but I'm not sure where I can make cuts. Any feedback on it would be helpful!
The moment I step on the field and I’m standing under the lights I forget the world
around me. It’s just my teammates and I and we’re focused on the task in front of us; 80 minutes
of soccer. 80 minutes until we are named National Champions and 80 minutes until all of the
hours we put in will finally become worth it. The only thing standing in our way was the team
opposite us.
Getting to where we were as a team took years of practice and months of conditioning but
getting to where I was as a player took a lifetime. By the time I was 15 I had been playing soccer
for 12 years and I loved it. I looked forward to practices, games and running. I was one of the
best players on every team I had played on. That’s when a few girls and I joined the best U16
girls team in the Jacksonville area. Making the team was easy; starting and playing for the team
was an entirely different story.
When your talents are being juxtaposed against another girl who is equally as talented as
you are it’s the little things that stand out. “Your foot skills are lacking, you aren’t fast enough,
you aren’t in good enough shape, you’re not seeing the field, you’re not seeing the best pass” are
the words I heard over and over again. Being good wasn’t good enough anymore; I needed to be
perfect and I sat the bench until I could figure that out.
To some people that could be demoralizing. When you go from being the best player on
the team to a player who is mediocre and sits the bench it changes your mindset. I started to think
I wasn’t good enough. I would never be good enough to compete on this level. I thought about
quitting soccer for good when a teammate sent me this quote: “Somewhere behind the athlete you've
become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in
love with the game and never looked back... play for her.” – Mia Hamm. It changed my entire
perspective.
I stayed late at practice every night working with my coach on my foot skills, I ran extra
outside of practice to get into better shape, I did everything I had to do in order to get a starting
spot. My hard work eventually began to show. I started some games, but if I made mistakes I
was back on the bench. I kept working to be perfect; to be the best player on the field and the
player I knew I could be.
Finally, state cup semi-finals: the final four. We were playing the best team in the state of
Florida and nervous was understatement. My coach named the starting line-up, I was named left
back, and finally everything fell into place from there. Our team played with such cohesion you
would have thought we had been playing together for years not just couple months. We came out
with a 1-0 win and moved on to the state championship. But the highlight of that night was not
the win but when my coach, the man I worked so hard with for so many hours over the past few
months, told me that after watching me play that night he could confidently say that “I was not
just one of the best defensive players in the state of Florida but one of the best defensive players
in the entire country.”
Fast forward a year later to Nationals. Playing soccer with this group of girls had never
felt so natural to me. We communicated effectively, played efficiently, and won effortlessly. The
only thing standing in our way from a perfect year was the team standing opposite us in the
championship game. But with the last year of countless hours of practice, conditioning and
games behind us nothing was going to stop us from winning this game. Our team evolved to
become the most talented we could be; the best in the country. I evolved to become the most
talented player I could be; the player I knew I could be-the one who learned to play for the little
girl that fell in love with the game
