I find words to be intriguing. They seem to be never ending, and if you open up a thesaurus, there’s almost a guarantee you could learn a new word every day forever. Although sometimes a word is simple and can be used in every day language, I still find it completely fascinating. Why? Because, some words can be used in a variety of ways, and in many different types of speech.
What do I mean by this? For example, take the word “hard.” Hard is an easy word which is commonly used. However, as an adjective, it describes something physically, such as “not soft” or “firm.” As an adverb, “hard” takes on a new meaning, to harshly or severely make a strong impact. Furthermore, if used in England, the British will use “hard” in slang references while in America, we will use “hard” as an idiom, such as “to be hard on someone” (which means you are being stern with an individual). Used in different contexts (such as noun, adverb, adjective, verb, preposition, etc), most words can have a different connotation.
So, how does this all relate to soccer? I was sitting down analyzing my long day. My little brother didn’t leave the car we share with any gas (which he also left a huge dent in the side), I received news from my orthodontist I might be a 20 year old with braces, and basically anything that could have gone wrong today, did. The more I thought about the events of today, the worse my mood got. I was talking with another teammate and I finally realized everything that happened today happened out of my control.
Control: (v)- to excersize restraint or direction over (n)- the act or power of controlling, regulating, or demanding (synonyms)- manage, restrain, rule
Control is one of those interesting words since in different contexts it has different meanings. No matter how you look at it, though, one lesson that some people in life never fully accept is this: In life, we can’t control everything.
Although we can’t control everything, that doesn’t mean we can’t control some things. Thinking about this upcoming season excites me. As a team, we can’t control what we are ranked in pre-season. We can’t control the blistering heat that Danville has experienced thus far this summer. We can’t control our game schedule or the fact that this is our last year as members of the SCAC. We can’t control how the Bermuda grass grows, or even if we will like all the food given to us in the cafeteria. However, in the grand scheme, there are three very important factors that every individual player can control, and these are what motivates us for the 2011 Soccer Season. Effort, Attitude, and Energy are the only three constants in life that we always have the ability of controlling.
We can control how much time and push we put into each work out session. That is our effort. We can control our mindset and keep it positively looking forward one day at a time towards our ultimate goal. That is our attitude. We can control the amount of reps, the intensity of our runs, the rigorousness of our work outs. That is our energy. As a team, if we can find a way to focus all of our individual controls and put them together as a single unit, this year is going to be like any other. This year is going to be the year of a tenacious, persistent, stubborn, adhesive team that works together to have complete control of the game.
23 more days.
As always, Centre Women Rock!
All of the CWS players that were able to come work Centre Soccer Camp as Counselors:
