Tenacity and the Soccer Player

Leah, now a seventeen-year-old high school senior, is a published writer. Writing is one of her passions and soccer is another. Both have been of interest to her since she was a little girl. As she grew older, she figured out that she would be able to use both of these interests to make a dream come true. And that dream was to meet the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team.

When she was eleven, she wrote a review column for Florida’s St. Petersburg Times newspaper. As a junior reporter on the paper’s 12 -member X-Team, she wrote movie and music reviews, interviews, and sports reviews for the “Express Pages” column. Her experiences as a junior reporter eventually led her to write a book manuscript. The name of her proposed book was Soccer Dreams.

The book was based on the many thrilling experiences and memories she had as a fan of the Women’s National team dating from 1996 to the “history-making 1999 Women’s World Cup Finals against China in Los Angeles.”

Leah’s love for soccer began when she was just a toddler. She remembers watching her family play impromptu games of the sport at beach outings. As she grew older, she and her younger sister joined in the family game fun. By age seven, her parents signed her up to play in a local recreational soccer league. Her passion for the sport peaked, and before she even realized it, the sport would come to affect her life in more ways than she imagined.

Over the next five years she continued playing with teams in the league and on school teams, sometimes playing on co-ed teams when there weren’t enough players to make up a girl’s team.

During the late 1990’s, interest in women’s soccer took hold. With each thrilling win by the U.S. Women’s National Team more fans filled stadium seats. Team members were making names for themselves. In 1996, Leah’s parents took her and her sister to their first professional soccer game — it was a “double-header match” between the United State and Norway’s men’s and women’s teams.

And just by chance, while the men’s teams were on the field playing, members of both women’s teams sat in the stands near Leah and her family. Finding the courage, she bravely asked the players for their autographs. And to her surprise, several of the U.S. players and coaches signed the autograph books that she and her younger sister had brought with them (just in case an opportunity did arise). The entire Norwegian team also signed.

That experience became a turning point for Leah. She admits to always being rather shy — especially back then — but now she says, “I’m more outgoing.”

While a member of the X-Team, her official press pass got her into training sessions and clinics staged by players, which provided her the opportunity to interview the players and take pictures. She had five feature stories on women soccer published in the Times.

By the end of that year, Leah had a lot of memories, notes, and photographs. “My dad sort of jokingly suggested that I should write a book, and I liked the idea,” so that’s how the idea came about. Leah finished writing the book when she was 13 (with the aid of family members). She admits that “I had no idea” how much work it would be.

The manuscript was sent to publishers, but “most publishers didn’t want to see anything by a 13-year-old. It was frustrating when we kept getting letters from the publishers saying ‘No!’ I was like, okay forget it.” So the family decided to put it on hold. “And then the Women’s World Cup was last year (2003) we thought that would be a good opportunity to try and publish it again. So we self-published it and that was all good.”

Soccer Dreams can now be found in stores, on Amazon.com Web site, and www.SoccerDreamsBook.com.

Leah says her goal for writing Soccer Dreams was “to get my message out that it is possible to follow your dreams.”

PT

* Reprinted from Positive Teens Magazine Volume 6 Issue 4, July/Aug 2004

{ Back to Spotlight }