Throw Back Thursday

I was going through the photos on the computer and found a bunch of Shandi's old soccer photos.  Shandi was a beast on the soccer field.  Super aggressive and an awesome midfielder.  

Shandi started playing soccer when she was four.  She never skipped a season.  When she turned seven, she tried out for a highly competitive team in New Orleans and she made the roster.  That was no easy feat, it was a tough team to get a spot on. 

Soccer is a time consuming sport.  If you play competitive soccer you play for around nine months a year.  There is a spring season, a fall season, and most of the places we lived there was also an indoor winter season.  Add that to the camps in the summer and you are playing soccer nearly all year.  

It's also a tough sport.  Shandi broke her toe when she was about 8, and she played the entire year with a broken foot.  The Coach (he never actually coached Shandi) taped it before every game and she just played.  She was tough as nails.  She is absolutely without a doubt the toughest of all the kids.  I remember when The Coach told her she couldn't play because of her toe, and she threw a gigantic fit.  Cried, screamed, all of it.  She begged him to tape it up at halftime and let her go back out on the field.  He did, and she played her butt off, broken toe and all.  After the game, she collapsed on the field and The Coach scooped her up and took her to the car.  That foot plagued her for three seasons.  She sprained her knee, got two concussions, a slew of bruises and black and blue ribs.  Soccer is tougher than football.  Football players wear pads.  

Shandi didn't leave anything out on the field, ever.  She was tough, and she was awesome.  And she absolutely loved to play soccer.  She pretty much breathed it her entire childhood.  And finally, during her senior year of high school, she started to burn out.  The Coach saw it coming, was worried it would happen, but she didn't ever want to slow down.  He encouraged her to take the winter season off, he encouraged her to take a break.  No, no break for Shandi.  

But she had a good run.  She earned plenty of awards, including All-State recognition for two years in high school.  She earned a spot as a starting player in her freshman year and ended her senior season as the MVP and as the Captain of her team.  

Shandizzle has been Shandi's nickname for as long as I can remember.

Shandi could score from both midfield and also on a corner kick.  Very impressive stuff. 

Shandi and her coach.

Last game of her senior year.    

Shandi was no joke.  She was vicious.  

Shandi briefly played for an Olympic Development League when we lived in Chicago.  That's the worst thing about being in the Navy.  Moving every three years, and lost opportunities.  She didn't seem to mind though, she was always a trooper.  She wasn't too disappointed, it was a huge time commitment.  And the one thing about Shandizzle, she loved her social time with her friends.  

I remember her very first soccer game in Worcester, Massachusetts.  She was the goalie, and kept letting the ball slip by without much effort because she didn't want to get her hands dirty.  The coach pulled her out of the net to play on the field and she immediately scored two goals.

In the wrong net, for the other team.  

I would have never in a million years guessed after that traumatizing first game that this little girl would go on to do big things on the field.