Joining the School Soccer Team Taught me a Heartbreaking Lesson

Your tribe is not always who you think it is

Photo by Ryan Clark on Unsplash

When I was 17, I made one of the dumber decisions of my life.

I decided to join the school soccer team.

I was on an upswing that summer — I found a path forward out of my funk, thanks mostly to my friend Ken who had moved up to the Bay Area the year before. The one message he communicated to me was clear: If I was going to change the direction of my life, I would have to do something drastic.

Showing up to practice that day wasn’t an act of bravado — it was an act of pure ignorance. I had no idea what I was getting into.

Every single person on that team had been playing soccer for most of their lives, from AYSO in first grade, to club teams all the way up into high school, where they paid their dues on the Freshman and Junior Varsity teams. And then there was me — this awkward, short uncoordinated dude who could barely kick a ball.

But as I would learn much later in life, when you have nothing to lose, that’s the time to go big.

They had to let me go through the preseason, but they didn’t have to accept me. The reaction to my presence was a mix of apathy, pity and pandering — usually they’d treat me as if I were…