Soccer is a Rollercoaster
Arya Jamkhandi is a sophomore at St. Francis High School in Mountain View, CA, where she is a goalie on the soccer team.
My first experience playing soccer was unusual, to say the least. I have a video saved on my camera roll of 5 year old me, playing Kidz Love Soccer in the park near my childhood home. As my dad records me on the camcorder, you can spot me struggling to weave my way through a set of tightly packed cones in the grainy film. I stop, contemplate for a while, then suddenly bend down and pick up the ball that’s half my size. I run through the cones and much to my dad’s futile yells of “No hands Arya!”, I hold the ball the rest of the way through the course. Little did I know, those few minutes at the park were only a taste of my soccer journey, the start of my playing career. I was destined to be a goalkeeper.
As I was growing up, I was always on the taller side, which led to more coaches coaxing me to try my luck in goal. At the age of 7, I joined my first real club. I remember how proud I felt in my uniform and gloves, like I was unstoppable. But I wasn’t passionate about it yet. The first time I went to Coach Matt’s goalkeeper training, I fell in love. He taught me how to hold a ball and on that pivotal day, I realized that this was it– I was going to stay with this and continuously strive to better myself as a goalkeeper.
For me, soccer has been a rollercoaster. Especially as a goalkeeper, not having a profound impact for the whole game and having to pull off a show-stopping top corner save in the last 10 seconds can be mentally tough. The hardest person on me is myself, and I beat myself up whenever I mess something up. But the highs will always outweigh the lows. As soon as I step onto that field, I can feel all of my stressors leaving me. It’s like taking a breath of fresh air.
While goalkeeping, nothing else can distract you from keeping the ball out of the net. The field becomes a sanctuary where worries dissipate and the only language spoken is the universal one of the beautiful game. In those fleeting moments, as the ball gracefully dances from one teammate to another, I find solace from the chaos of the outside world and for a while, the only thing that truly matters is the pursuit of the save. Soccer transcends the mundane, offering a brief but enchanting reprieve where the soul soars amidst the symphony of teamwork and passion.
I’ve found parts of myself that wouldn’t have been possible without soccer. The amount of grit and hard work that I've realized is needed in order to get ahead has changed my life. Through the sport, I’ve also found the opportunity to give back in my community. I started a non-profit, Sports Dream Foundation, that takes used sports equipment from high schools and repurposes it. We allow underprivileged kids to use this equipment to experience playing sports properly. Seeing these kids enjoying the game as I did at a young age allows me to reflect on how far I’ve come as not just a player, but as a person. It also allows me to prepare for how much more work is needed to meet my goals.
