Drawing Becca Miller

On paper, you’d think I had the potential to be the next Lionel Messi or Alex Morgan. However, in reality, I was nowhere near being that good. “What am I doing wrong?” That thought kept me up every night. Nothing I did was good enough. I mean, I would work out and go for runs on our off days, I kept a strict diet, and I was always the hardest worker on the field. Yet it still wasn’t good enough. Whenever we did a passing pattern or a drill at practice, I was always the reason it would break down and our coach would yell at us, which resulted in my teammates constantly being mad at me. The most frustrating part about it was that no matter how hard I worked to get better, nothing worked. It was like the universe hated me and wanted me to give up. Nevertheless, I was determined to stay true to myself and not give up on my dreams. Becca Miller

The first step before the Women’s National Team was getting recruited to play college soccer. To get coaches to actually notice me, I needed to do something I had never done before: play well.

I wasn’t a superstitious person, but I knew a lot of people who were. Some of my friends had lucky basketball shoes, a lucky necklace, or even lucky underwear or a pair of socks. I’ve always believed that whatever happened was supposed to happen, and no object could change reality, no matter how much people hoped differently.

I got dressed and drove 40 minutes to my practice, ready to disappoint my team again. I got out of the car and walked onto the field with my friends. As we were warming up, I was passing back and forth with my friend Bella, and I felt my foot slide forward when I kicked her the ball. I looked down and my left cleat had ripped at the toe. I started to panic because we had our first tournament that weekend, and college coaches would be scouting there. My friend got me some athletic tape to bind the cleat so I could finish practice. When my dad picked me up from school the next day, he took me to Angelo’s Soccer Corner, the local soccer store, to look for a new pair of cleats. That store was my definition of heaven: the walls were lined with the newest and coolest cleats and the shelves were stocked with every color pre-wrap I could imagine. I made my way around the store and found myself standing in front of the bin filled with cleats that were on clearance.

I knelt beside the bin and began digging through the cleats, seeing if any of them were my size. I found myself face to face with a pair that caught my eye. They were white Nikes, with a baby blue swoosh and matching laces. I picked them up and checked to see if they were my size — lucky for me, they were. They fit perfectly. I had never had such a comfortable pair of cleats before. I wandered around the store until I found my dad waiting at the checkout for me. I placed the box onto the counter so the cashier could ring the cleats up. “Wow, they really scream ‘Peppa,’ they’re perfect for you, and they’ll go great with your uniforms!” my dad said as he handed the cashier his credit card.

All I could think about for the next few days was how excited I was to wear my new cleats that weekend. I knew that there was just something special about them. I couldn’t put my finger on it quite yet, but I could feel it.

It was game day. I had been waiting for this moment, to see what I could do in these new cleats. My stomach filled with butterflies as the f came to an end. With about five minutes left in the car ride, I began to panic and I aggressively unzipped my bag out of fear that I had forgotten my new cleats. But luckily, they were in there.

“You have arrived. Destination is on your right,” said the annoying woman on Waze.

The butterflies that filled my stomach soon turned into feelings of excitement. “Bye, Dad! I’ll see you after the game, thanks for the ride!” I said as I pushed open the car door and ran to meet my teammates on the side of the field. I walked up to them as they huddled together next to the bench. They all had this annoyed look glossing over their eyes, so instead of showing them my cleats like I had been anticipating, I quietly pulled them out and laced them up, keeping to myself.

As we warmed up I felt the pressure of everyone’s eyes on me, as if they were watching my every move, but I couldn’t figure out why. We got into our warm-up drills and started to pass the ball around. This is when I started to notice a difference: when the ball was passed to me, my touch didn’t bounce away from me out of control like it had for my whole life. Instead it was under control and perfect, along with my pass back to my teammate at the cone across from me. It was as if the cleats had a mind of their own. As warm-ups went on, I outshone everyone on my team. Everyone was in awe, including me. I had no idea what brought on this sudden change in skill, but I wasn’t going to complain. For the first time in my 12 years of playing soccer, I was actually outperforming my teammates. All of my hard work and effort was finally paying off.