Personal Statement

I was pretty undersized when I was younger.  I’m a very young 2025, almost a 2026.  So, I’ve always been smaller than most of my classmates. But I love to compete.  I didn’t grow up in a lacrosse hotbed, so there was more opportunity to see playing time with lacrosse than baseball or football. 

I discovered the goalie position my very first year.  I wasn’t very fast, so I didn’t get to touch the ball that much playing the other positions.   What I learned about playing goalie was that I actually got to touch the ball a lot (and sometimes it touched me…ouch).  But I was making a contribution. And it was something not a lot of my teammates even wanted to attempt.  The more I played, the harder I tried.  It really made me want to compete. Every time I stepped on the field, I wanted to be the best goalie on the field during that game.   

I’ve grown some over the years.  The doctor says I’m right in the 50th percentile for my age now.  But living with a chip on my shoulder all those years has given me an advantage over those bigger athletes.  Knowing I had to work harder and do extra reps or workout more when nobody else was made me better.  The great thing is that I’m still the underdog.  Jason Kelce from the Philadelphia Eagles once said: “Hungry dogs run faster.”  That kind of describes me.

I just moved to upstate NY the summer before 9th grade.  The club teams here were very hard to break in to.  Moving to a hotbed, there are a bunch of good goalies and most teams already had two goalies.  I had to really buckle down at tryouts and compete in order to take someone else’s job.  I didn’t make it on either of the first 2 teams.  Apparently , even if I performed well, I wasn’t going to beat out someone who had already been there for a few years.  I understood what I was up against, but I just had to stand out more and someway, somehow be more remarkable.

I remember at my last tryout my dad told me that I needed to go out and steal someone’s lunch money.  I laughed at him. But I thought about it as I walked out onto the field.   I’m always the underdog. People look at me and see something ordinary and unremarkable.  They underestimate me all of the time.  But that’s my biggest advantage and that’s how I do get to take their lunch money.  That’s what a coach and a team will get out of me. I’m focused and I’m tenacious.  And I’m going to take the other goalie‘s lunch money every time.  Oh…I made that last team, by the way.  I guess hungry dogs really do run faster.