Chapter 1. My soccer journey.

Well, I’ve been struggling to decide what to write about - because my thoughts are always so jumbled inside my big head, so I finally concluded that i’ll test out a story theme for this blog. Why? Because, although my life is not that interesting, it’s novel worthy. I’m going to begin by discussing one of my biggest passions - soccer (or football). Since I’m typing this from the “land of the free”, I’ll refer to the sport as soccer.

If you have read my “About me” section, you’d know that I was just in Scotland. How did I get there? I’m about to elaborate.

December. After I graduated in the winter of 2018 from The University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, I continued my soccer training by playing on a WPSL (Women’s Premier Soccer League) team named the TTI Bluebonnets. TTI was also located in Houston, Texas. In fact, I never stopped training. The following day that my college team lost our conference tournament semi-final that ended our season, I was back at training - hungry to keep playing. I trained from January through the last week of June, continuously.

January. The early months of 2019 was filled with a lot of uncertainty for me. Since I had just graduated from college, the “nOrmAl” thing to do would be get a full-time job. After all, I have a degree now, right? Wrong. (I do have my degree, but I was not eager to jump into a 9 to 5 job). I was eager to join a professional soccer team. I remember sitting down with my coach, maybe the first week of January or the last week in December and saying something along the lines of, “All right. I’m ready. What do I have to do to go pro? I’m checked in.” He actually laughed at me. He said, “You are not ready. In fact you’re nowhere near ready. This isn’t going to happen over night, and it might not even happen within the next 3 years.” Three years?! What the f**k. Is he kidding me? No I want to go NOW. I won’t elaborate on how the rest of that conversation went. But I was very discouraged to say the least.

February/March. I spent the next few months attending training any time I was available. I trained an average of 4/5 times a week. I ran on the weekends, I got touches in on my own, I played pick-up any chance I could get. I started to do some more of my own work and I reached out to coaches and other players who I knew had played professionally before. Everyone’s advice was different. I contacted my old college coach and asked for film so I could put together my own "highlight” video to send off to coaches. I decided not to hire an agent (many other girls do this). I was confident enough that I could send off my highlight video, “soccer CV”, and get an offer from a team abroad.

During these months my days consisted of waking up at inconsistent hours, keeping myself busy, occasionally traveling, hanging out with friends, and eventually - finding a job. Side note: I’m not much of a long-term planner. at all. Someone can ask me where I see myself in a month. I don’t know - sorry ! What I did know, is that my financial situation was not steady. I needed to work. I was putting off getting a job because I thought I would be shipped abroad with a professional contract by this time. Since things seemed to be taking longer than I anticipated, I applied at a local bar/restaurant as a server. I walked in, talked to the manager, and I got the job immediately - he told me I started the next day. Awesome! In addition, a few weeks later I got a job at a small law firm as a legal administrative assistant. Boom. Back to being a busy-bee. I ended up working part-time at the office, working both days on the weekends, training every day for soccer in the evenings, and studying for the LSAT (law school admission test) in my free time. The LSAT is something I will discuss another day.

April. I was visiting my boyfriend up in Rochester, New York. We were sitting in one of his lectures when I got a text that read; “I have something for you in Scotland. Do your research. Talk when you get back.” - My coach. Oh sh*t. Finally?! This text came at a time where I least expected it. First things first, someone was FINALLY interested in me. I was ecstatic. Scotland? I was freaking born here - when do I leave?! At this time, I had not given up on the idea of playing abroad, I just didn’t think it would happen this fast.

May. I arrived home and had a face-to-face conversation with my head coach who had finally arrived from England. He told me that he had an old friend who was now managing a team in Scotland, and that he would put me in contact with him and after that I’d be on my own. In other words; I get put in touch, and then I sort myself out.

To speed up this story - I spoke with the head coach from Heart of Midlothian FC and he proposed his offer and we discussed how life would be for me in Edinburgh.

~~~ I’m gonna take a detour here and mention an important detail. During this time my dad was somewhat acting like my agent (a good thing). He began contacting people from back home to ask how the leagues were (since we knew nothing about Scottish football at the time). It ends up - we had a friend of a friend who knew a head coach of a team in the division above the one I was going to play for. Fascinating. Again to speed up the story, we got in contact with that coach and he said since I was already planning on coming over to Scotland (and after seeing my highlight video), he’d be happy to have me on the squad. It was a done deal. The flight was bought, and living arrangements were made.

SO with all of that being said, I actually backed out of my initial offer and I went through with my new, enticing offer (at the time); playing for Hibernian FC (also in Edinburgh). A top team in the SWPL who are known for winning many cup titles.

June. I played one of my best seasons yet. I was the top goal scorer on my team as a forward, I started nearly every game, and I played almost the full length of every match. I co-won offensive player of the year for the south division (red river). My team won the conference title for a third year in a row. I made some of my best friends on this team. We struggled through the tough and celebrated through the success. It was a summer to remember.

July. Time to go! The day after taking my LSAT I left the U.S. to pursue my dream of playing professionally. And the rest is history.

Just kidding, that’s what Chapter 2 is for.