Having devoted the past 14 years of my childhood to competitive soccer, I now realize having a life might be worth it. Compared to other 11 year olds in the soccer scene, my childhood wasn’t filled with otter pops and orange slices, but rather sweat and pressure from my father who happened to vicariously fulfill his major league fantasies through my soccer experience.

However on February 9 of this year, my world flipped upside down, literally. Against the toughest team in the league with a few minutes to go, I made a dive to a ball that seemed impossible. It would be cool to say I managed to pull off the impossible, but the ground got in the way. After two hard ground-to-head contacts and I was in a daze.

I always wanted to be the player on the ground with all of the attention and silence in the stadium. This was not what happened to me. The game just continued to roll right through like i was invisible. A high five from my teams forward was about all the acknowledgment my leap of hope got me.

With an injured, concussed head, little did I know I was embarking on the toughest journey yet.  Life as I knew it came to a screeching halt. Instead of full field liners it was the slow walk down the long hall I have to dread, and all I get out of it was a nice seat on the comfiest couch in the house. This became my daily routine, I no longer have game day to look forward to. It is replaced by the excitement for a new episode of any decent tv show to distract me from the constant pounding in my head.

The pain of this experience is beyond just the physical aspect. As a player in action, you never take a second glance at that person in crutches sitting on the bench handing you water in the midst of a game. Now, I am that crutched player, the neglected one with a permanent seat on the bench. For sidelined players like me, each game and practice are more torturous than the last, watching as my starting position fades away and my efforts on the field just a faint memory. It seems as though I am forgotten on and off the field, no longer and equal part of the team I once played my heart out for.

Changes like these showed me that my heart was in the wrong place, and there is more out there then the narrow minded politics of competitive soccer.

This begins but one folder in the many Foley Files to come, the voice of the silent player.