"Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud, and how does it relate to the person you are?"
I am, to a certain extent, a gifted student. My grades were consistently high and I found my academic life rather easy. But in my early teens I never found true satisfaction with good grades and amazing reports. While my grades did please me, I felt that my life lacked something to strive for. Something that really taxed my industrious and perseverant streak. Something which didn't come to me naturally, with minimal effort. With these thoughts I turned towards the 100x50 yard soccer pitch outside my classroom.
My early soccer days were fraught with intense training, conversations only about tactics and matches. Long hours of kicking a ball in my neighborhood only to be rewarded with making the school team one week and intense disappointment the next. My inclusion as a central defender in the Under-14 year's category of the soccer team was a moment to cherish.
Happy, but not entirely satisfied with my accomplishment I trained even harder to cement my place in the team. As I expected, my determination to play was severely tested with several people asking me why I chose to choose a new path to success instead of exploiting my academic prowess. "Stop wasting your time with sports," my friends would tell me.
To me, the hours spent on soccer were anything but wasted time.
I held a place in the school soccer team right through high school and my passion for the sport was undiminished by an increase in academic workload. Just before an Under-17 match, my coach told my fellow defenders and me to each pick out one opponent and follow him like a shadow all over the pitch (a tactic called man-to-man defense). This made us all very nervous as if any opponent scored, we would know who to blame. During the match, however no one saw suppressing one opponent as their sole task but helped each other win the ball back, chased after stray attackers and called for assistance when needed.
Although our goal scorers reaped the glory, the fact that our defense spontaneously and seamlessly worked together as a single impenetrable unit responsible for the big zero next to our opponents' name on the scoreboard made me happier than any test score had.
As I moved past my high school years, I dreamed of playing as a professional. Sadly where the dream was, the requisite talent wasn't. Academics became my main focus but soccer continues to be my passion. In retrospect, being on the soccer team taught me the true values of teamwork, perseverance and strength of character that neither academic awards nor prize money did.
Hi everyone. Does the first paragraph make me seem too much of a braggart? Also, do you think I should elaborate more on how my achievements on the soccer team reflect my personality?
I am, to a certain extent, a gifted student. My grades were consistently high and I found my academic life rather easy. But in my early teens I never found true satisfaction with good grades and amazing reports. While my grades did please me, I felt that my life lacked something to strive for. Something that really taxed my industrious and perseverant streak. Something which didn't come to me naturally, with minimal effort. With these thoughts I turned towards the 100x50 yard soccer pitch outside my classroom.
My early soccer days were fraught with intense training, conversations only about tactics and matches. Long hours of kicking a ball in my neighborhood only to be rewarded with making the school team one week and intense disappointment the next. My inclusion as a central defender in the Under-14 year's category of the soccer team was a moment to cherish.
Happy, but not entirely satisfied with my accomplishment I trained even harder to cement my place in the team. As I expected, my determination to play was severely tested with several people asking me why I chose to choose a new path to success instead of exploiting my academic prowess. "Stop wasting your time with sports," my friends would tell me.
To me, the hours spent on soccer were anything but wasted time.
I held a place in the school soccer team right through high school and my passion for the sport was undiminished by an increase in academic workload. Just before an Under-17 match, my coach told my fellow defenders and me to each pick out one opponent and follow him like a shadow all over the pitch (a tactic called man-to-man defense). This made us all very nervous as if any opponent scored, we would know who to blame. During the match, however no one saw suppressing one opponent as their sole task but helped each other win the ball back, chased after stray attackers and called for assistance when needed.
Although our goal scorers reaped the glory, the fact that our defense spontaneously and seamlessly worked together as a single impenetrable unit responsible for the big zero next to our opponents' name on the scoreboard made me happier than any test score had.
As I moved past my high school years, I dreamed of playing as a professional. Sadly where the dream was, the requisite talent wasn't. Academics became my main focus but soccer continues to be my passion. In retrospect, being on the soccer team taught me the true values of teamwork, perseverance and strength of character that neither academic awards nor prize money did.
Hi everyone. Does the first paragraph make me seem too much of a braggart? Also, do you think I should elaborate more on how my achievements on the soccer team reflect my personality?