Coming from a small rural town in Arizona, you tend to forget the amount of diversity in the world and in peoples’ stories. After YYGS, I learned that it is important to surround yourself with people from all types of backgrounds and perspectives because that is how we can create change in the world.
My school has always been heavily focused on academics, making it extremely difficult to do extracurriculars or sports. Consequently, the organization of sports teams always proved to be a challenge, where some years they did not offer a sport because there was no coach, and other years because not enough people signed up to join a sport.
My friend and I were tired of the same old thing every year, so in the beginning of the school year, we began to rent out a turf field every weekend, so we could practice soccer. We began to invite more and more people to join our sessions, so we could give them the option to join us and practice. We first started with me and my friend, and now around 5-8 people come to practice with us. With more people joining, our practices have become more organized and productive, where we actually preform shooting drills, passing drills and etc. While we have not fixed the school’s disorganization, we are hopeful that these three hour practice sessions will yield better results in both physique and game results.