I was standing anxiously on the plastic green topping that has sopped up the blood, sweat and tears of many athletes for the past couple of months. It was a warm night with humidity still in the air from the early spring showers that morning. The crowd shifted from a loud roar of cheering to a deathly silence of anticipation. I crouched down and got into position, a position I had slowly mastered over my past training. I leaned forward…the ball hits the ground…we wait…we wait…Whistle! This is the moment that I found my confidence. It all started in my backyard when I got my very first lacrosse stick. I was so excited, and I couldn’t wait to toss the ball around with my dad. I didn’t know it yet, but this backyard would become my happy place. It would be a place I could go when things got tough or when I had nowhere else to go. I was having a great time, even though I could barely throw and catch at this point. It was fun learning how to play a new sport with my dad, so I didn’t mind. But of course all good things must end. When I went to school that very next Monday, some of my old teammates came up…show more content… I was ecstatic, and my dad couldn’t have been any happier for me. This was the first time I was putting pads on and playing against other people. I ran out onto the field ready for just about anything to be thrown at me, and then the others started pointing at me and laughing. I looked down and saw that my shoulder pads were on backwards. I got bright red in the face and ran back over to my bag on the sideline. It was so embarrassing that the coach had to help me put my pads on correctly. This painted me as a target already, and this trend kept up through the entire season. I slowly progressed my skills on the field but I was easily the least skilled player on the team. It wasn’t until my first year of high school that I started to become skilled at the
