Soccer and the Common Struggle

Whoever thought that a rain delay would cause one of the most significant conflicts of my life. The impending downpour outside reflected a storm brewing within me. As my teammates eagerly awaited an extremely important game from the locker room, my anxiety was not rooted in the game, but in the choice that I had to make.

I emerged from the locker room and immediately squinted from the fluorescent lights that lit up the field. My heart began to pump and my ears became deafened by the roaring of the fans. Growing up in the desert, my body was keen on detecting signs of rain. As I began my breathing techniques, I could feel my lungs working just a little harder to combat the moisture in the air. This was the moment that I had been working for since the first time I kicked a soccer ball at age 3, I was selected to be in the starting eleven. As my excitement grew, there was a nervousness about this particular game. Due to the rain delay, I only had ten minutes to prove ten years of exhausting training.

This game fell on one of the holiest days in my religion. I am a Greek Orthodox Christian, but I am a special subset of the religion which follows the Gregorian calendar, one of only 15 people in Utah who practice this way. I often feel like an outsider in my Catholic school and in my Mormon neighborhood. To put it simply, my life looks nothing like “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” The comedic portrayals of lambs on spits in the front yard or windex as the latest medical remedy are replaced by strict fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, and long Church services; one of which was set to begin shortly after the start of the biggest game of my young career. The hours of practice perfecting my skills and my love and passion for the game came into conflict with my steadfast commitment to my culture and religious traditions that were instilled within me since birth.

This was not the first time that the player that I worked hard to become and the person that I was raised to be created a tension within me. At pregame dinners, I could never enjoy the food with my teammates due to my fasting obligations. The never-ending weekends and in some cases, weeks of church, often pulled me away from team events. And even when traveling with my team to tournaments, my racial background caused many “random” pat downs and security checks which again made me feel isolated from the group.

I made a choice that day at my soccer game to leave before the opening whistle. I think about it all the time, but not once have I regretted it. Through this all, my teammates remained supportive and never grew angry when I missed practices, team outings, or in this case, our big game. These moments brought us closer, and made me feel less ostracized.

Despite my personal conflict and feeling of isolation, I have found a sense of belonging among my teammates. Though we are a diverse group of individuals, we all share the commonality of being adolescents struggling with personal tensions, whether they be racial, socio-economic, religious, cultural, or others. How we deal with our tensions shapes who we are and builds our identity as humans, students, friends, athletes, sons and brothers. The common struggle, though unique to each of us in terms of its particular opposing forces, breaks down the barriers that separate us. It is not our different backgrounds or experiences that define our relationships, but our inevitable struggles that unite us.