2013 Winning Scholarship Essays Peter Brodeur, Granby, CT - Granby Rovers Soccer Club What Soccer Means to Me It was a perfect pyramid we made in a photograph that day, my brother, Nick, and his third grade friends beaming in their Granby Rovers uniforms on the bottom, and me, six years old, standing proudly on top in my Juventus jersey. I am certain that when the pyramid broke, I chased after them to play more soccer. If we could have predicted it, we would not have known that as nearly grown men, we would one day be in the Class M State final together. On that day, the culmination of hours of preparation, the crowd roars as we approach the pitch. The whistle blows, and the ball makes its way back and forth over center field. Passes received with ease, kicks defying the laws of physics, shots curving around the keeper past the goal, all of them punctuated by a thirst for victory. And the intensity of the crowd grows. Finally, a goal, but it is for the other side. I squat down, cupping my hands, knowing as the freshman who plays premier and ODP, I am still standing atop a pyramid, the team holding steady underneath. We scope the field, we acknowledge the positioning of our adversaries and we score a goal, but we lose by one. It is a defeat on paper, but a win in life. Soccer, to me, is the perfect union between players who know that there is also victory in giving everything you can, and on that day, we gave it all.
Lauren Clark, Wallingford, CT - Wallingford Youth Soccer What Soccer Means to Me Joga Bonito: play beautifully. My coach has been preaching this Portuguese adage to me since I was nine. Soccer has always been an outlet that provides both physical and mental exercise. No two games are exactly the same. I love the challenge of mastering new moves and finding new ways to score. Soccer is always changing and it is the creativity required to keep up with the changing game that makes it beautiful. The poem “Soccer-The Game of Life,” by Anonymous, aptly...