A look toward the future by Nate Miller

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Last weekend, I had a soccer tournament in Philadelphia. It is one of the most highly attended tournaments by college coaches in the country. The tournament is called the Penn Fusion Winter Classic Showcase. This tournament is highly competitive and my club team, World Class FC (WCFC), did not intend on losing it. Coming into this tournament, we had one all of our previous 4 tournaments and we were very confident. However, you can never go into a tournament feeling completely confident that you are going to win because you won't perform well during the game. Our team learned this lesson early in the first game because we went down 1-0 in the first half. Thankfully, we were able to regroup and calm down. The final result of that game was a 5-1 victory, with all five goals coming in the second half. Our team received a much needed wake up call in that first game. It proved to be helpful, when we won all three games, as well as the tournament.
We didn't only need to win, but everyone on our team had to play with everything they could because we never knew who could be watching us. Prior to the tournament, several players on our team, including me, emailed several college coaches and made them aware that our team would be playing in that tournament. Therefore, at any given time, our team as a whole could have been watched by at least 3 schools and it was extremely important that everyone played the best that they possibly could. Although we are only sophomores, college is only two and a half years away and we want to be on as many college coaches radars as possible, so we have a better chance at getting the opportunity to play in college. College is something that I have been looking forward to for such a long time and now that it is so close, it's frightening. However, I played great in each one of our games and I thought that my performance definitely got a few college coaches attention. My great performance also made me feel less nervous.
One of my biggest goals in life is to play soccer in college and these are just a few steps toward my future, but I am going to have to work harder than I ever have if I want a chance to play. One thing that I have learned is that the future is inevitable, so don't be afraid of it. You just have to do the best you can to shape your future in the best way possible.

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