By Jordan Johnsson
I woke up on a Saturday, and this wasn't just a normal Saturday. This one was my birthday. I went downstairs to eat breakfast when my mom said, "Happy birthday Jordan."
I had breakfast and asked my brother, Kobi, and my sister, Maia, if they would take me to the park to play soccer. My brother said, "Yes, sure when?"
I said, "after breakfast."After breakfast, we went to the park. We brought a goal to the park so we could have a big game. I was getting very excited because my house was being renovated, so I didn’t have much time to practice. We got ready and started to walk to the park. I was jumping up and down and thanking my siblings. I wondered if I would see anyone I know at the park. Singing and jumping we arrived.
I ran to set up all the cones and the goal. My brother and sister started to play with me, and soon many kids joined. We had a fun time. Kids were passing and, believe it or not, I passed. Goals were scored in a fair way. Most kids were older than me but there were like 1 or 2 my age, 5 years old. We were playing for like 5 minutes before one kid around 10 came. He did not care that there were people younger than him. He tripped and fouled people that were smaller, and he did it a lot to me because I was the smallest. Each time he did this I would cry, and he would say something like, "Chicken."
It was my birthday, and I wanted everything to go my way. And the way I had planned was being squashed. I said, “I want to go home, and it is up to me because the goal is mine.”
My siblings talked me out of doing it, but I was crying, and I think it was something like this: “Jordan I will tell him to stop, but if he does not listen we can go home.” In pain and hurting from his shoving, I agreed.
“Get up chicken,'' the boy said.
He made fun of me again but I thought to myself, “Ok I will stay, I need to prove that I can score.” I had never met the kid before and he was laughing at me almost as if he was trying to take out his anger on me. Ever since then I've liked when people make fun of me before soccer games because it boosts my confidence and how much I was willing to put into the game. I got back to the game, took a deep breath, and started to play. I was angry and scared. My goal was to beat the 10-year-old. I had to be faster and smarter, which was not very easy for me to do because I was 5. I tried going left and faking right as I see on tv. It was not working the way I had thought it would. I tried kicking from farther and it was close. The ball got past him, but I needed to get past him, not just the ball. Finally, I got past him by faking right, but if I kept doing it he would figure it out. All I had to do was shoot. I could see him running at me from beside me, but I had to keep running. I was tired, and I was losing my speed with every step. I needed to go a little bit more. I slowed down, made sure the ball was on my right foot, and I put all I had in the shot. It hit the net, and I felt accomplished and that I could do anything. I think I went back and teased the guy and made chicken sounds but who cares. “Who’s the chicken now?”
I kept the rhythm of scoring and how to get by him, each time passing from one foot to another trying to be very unpredictable. I scored 4 goals, each one thinking about what I am doing and channeling my anger. Before he had to go, I felt really good about myself. I could not do the same moves each time because he would be able to predict what I would be doing. And I felt like a student of the game
I knew after that multiple years from then I would be talking about the story here.
That day changed the way I view soccer as a game. Because of this incident, I don't back down from challenges from people that are bigger than me, and I know better than to trash-talk other teams. I channel my emotions and my anger when people trash-talk me. I think when a team trash-talks another team they usually become full of themselves. Every time my team went up against one that trash-talked us they lost. Teams that trash-talk are scared and they do it to make themselves feel better.
My siblings always challenge me in soccer, and it pushes me to be better and try more in
I would say the moral of the story is that a game is not over till the time is out. Another takeaway is it's important to always have someone to help you when you really need it in this case my brother
