You all heard the news recently, you just saw on Instagram that I was made the soccer team manager and I wanted to thank all the praises that you gave.
Now, I want you to know what the life of a soccer team manager is like. It is not fun and it can be tense at times, I feel that being the manager has given me a place in sports and allow me to be able to be part of an accomplishment that I never got a chance to achieve. Before becoming a manger, I wanted to try out for the team, but I did not qualify. I failed to complete the first two shuttle runs in under 19 seconds and I thought that was the end of my soccer career, but it really was not.
Suddenly, over UMass Boston email, I got a notification from Jake asking if I wanted to be a manger and I said yes. This made me very happy and grateful that I could get something that I could not accomplish. Although I’m not considered a half-athlete, I do play an important role in the team. Many people in school often root for the players, but I want you to see that it is not always about the players or the body, but the quality of training and practice that managers, coaches, and trainers put into them and the mindset of the athletes. Without any of us, who would guild the athletes or give them the motivation to get their butts off the benches and onto the field to play the game?
It is not only about the fact that we provide the important tools necessary for the athletes; we are the ones motivating them and getting them to play for our team. I admit we cannot control the athletes and get them to take the sport seriously, but we do everything we can to support them. Although we cannot get into personal details, what I can say is that if any of you athletes have any personal problems, work, or lack of sleep etc. going on; you do not have to force yourself at these practices when you do not want to. I’m not in any way giving you any free passes on whenever you want to show up to practice, but if you are starting to get tired and we feel that it might interfere with your athletic performance, we want you to know that we can accommodate to you and make sure you have everything resolved so that you can be at your best in any athletic sport. Ideally, I wish all athletes can have my mindset in which you show up to every practice and play all the way to the end, but I concede that there are unexpected circumstances that can happen to anyone and sometimes those events matter more.
Back to the discussion of equipment, as team manger I provide the athletes with water and I pick all the balls that go out of bounds. The thing about a sport is that we want the athletes to keep practicing, if there were no coaches or mangers who would guide the players or keep the practice running smoothly so that we can improve the athletes? As any athlete at this school knows, we should be practicing and trying to improve our technique, not doing simply manual work that wastes our time like picking up balls or moving nets. It is important to note that I fill the water bottles and tanks so that our athlete can stay hydrated. Ideally, I wish I can put Himalayan salt into the water to hydrate them better, but it is the coaches’ choice. The important thing is that I help the team in ways that make them the best player in the state.