When I was little, my favorite sport was always soccer. I had tried basketball and baseball, but they didn’t really fit. I needed something that I could really express myself in, but would still challenge me. I needed a big field to run on, where the action doesn’t stop. A game that involved style and skill.

I first started soccer when I was in Kindergarten. It didn’t mean anything to me back then. Probably because the field could fit into my house and the goals were only about three feet or less tall. But when I started, I knew I wanted to be a goalie. The first year that goalie was an actual position in soccer, which was about third or fourth grade. I did pretty good and was the best one on my team. My friend, who was the coach’s son, told me that I was going to be the all time goalie for our team. When I heard that, I was super excited, but at the next practice, I decided that I wanted to run more, and so I switched to mostly defender. It wasn’t until two years later until I realized my true calling in soccer.

It was the last game of our season. We were winning 2-1. I hated it whenever my coach put me in as striker, and he knew that. But since it was the last game, he decided to have some fun.

“Jonah, go in as right striker,” he said. “No! Do you want to lose our last game?” He laughed and nodded his head towards center field, which is where you wait for the ref to call you in for a sub. I high-fived my teammate that was coming out and I jogged lethargically onto the field and took my position. I eyed my defender to see what I was up against. He was tall and fairly skinny. He had hair as dark as mine, and he looked mean. I put my mean face on too so that he would take me seriously. I got the ball right away off of a throw in and started taking it down field. I dribbled around that defender with ease and I was so shocked when I did that that I slowed down. The middle defender came sprinting at me and I cut right across the 18 (the top penalty box line) and now it was just me and the goalie. I chipped it right over the top of his head and it sailed into the net. I ran back to the middle of the pitch and took my position. I ended up scoring two more times in that game. The final score was 5-1. After that great experience, you’d think that I would want to play striker as much as possible, but that was not the case. I stayed back as defender for two more years, until last season. Instead of putting me in for the last game of the season, coach put me in as striker for the first game of the season. We won that game 9-0. Sure, I didn’t score all of those goals. But I assisted three of them.

Nowadays, I ask to be a forward all the time. But my coach only puts me up there about once a game. He says, “You are our best defender and I need you back there,” or something like that. I can’t wait for high school soccer, now. All of my best friends are in Des Moines Menace, which is a league where you have to try out. My parents won’t let me join, for some reason, so high school will be my only opportunity to actually get a chance to play with them. And it will actually mean something. I don’t think I’m good enough to be a professional when I grow up, but I do want to play it for the rest of my life.