Soccer Changed My Life

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Many things have helped to shape my identity to make me the person I am. The most influential thing that has shaped me is my culture. One of the biggest pieces of my culture that has done this is my participation in sports. Out of the sports I play, high school soccer has shaped me the most. Soccer in high school shaped my identity by making me more social, a leader, and open minded about diversity. Soccer has guided me in many ways to become the person I am. Especially in high school, the sport has showed me how to be much more cooperative and open with others. Before high school, I isolated myself from others and had only a few close friends. Rather than being a sociable, I acted as though I was the only person in the world and had the outlook that as long as I do what is right individually, there is no need for me to work with others. This outlook changed when I joined the soccer team at Holy Spirit, my high school. With the way soccer is at the high school level, I had no choice but to cooperate and associate my selves with others. Once on the field, instead of introducing myself as "me" I had to introduce myself as a part of the team. You win as a team and you lose as a team. Sometimes I wanted to drive to games myself, and I was not allowed to because we are supposed to travel together and it would be wrong to the team for me to separate myself from the group. After I took a more active part in society in high school, I noticed that had become more of a leader than I w... ... middle of paper ... ...n and Spanish. Being forced to be on a team with them made me learn to cooperate with them and I ended up being good friends with most of them. I met two of my good friends Vic and Promise, both African Americans, through soccer and it might not have ever happened had I not been apart of the team. I am not the only person who made friends from different races through soccer. In the article "School sports is a safety net for youths: Less active youngsters often have problems trying to cope with life", Richard Lapchick says "As overt acts of racism and the number of school-based hate groups climb, the survey shows team sports create bonds that cut across racial lines; 76 percent of all white and African American student-athletes say they became friends with someone from another racial or ethnic group while playing sports."

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