Chapter 1: LEGACY – ROOKIE: Surviving Your Freshman Year of College Soccer

When you’re planning your Spring Break vacation, what’s the first and most important decision you have to make? Before you buy your plane ticket or gas up your car or pack your suitcase, you obviously need to pick your destination. Your destination has a major impact on all of the other choices you’re going to make.

You have four seasons of college soccer. That’s not a lot. When your career is finished, your coaches and teammates will talk about the kind of player you were; about the type of teammate and leader you were; about the type of student and citizen you were. The words they choose to describe you will be your legacy. Ultimately, on this trip that is college soccer, your legacy is your destination.

Before you start packing your suitcases, do yourself a tremendous favor and define your legacy. Figure out what your college career is going to look like. Find yourself an hour of quiet and solitude, and pretend that you are a college senior and your career has just ended. Looking back, what do you see? Over these past four years, who were you?

What type of player were you? What type of teammate were you? What were the principles that you refused to bend? Were you a leader? Maybe a captain? What were the characteristics that defined you in the eyes of your coaches and teammates? Ask yourself, “What will they say about me when it’s all over?”

Write it down. Write down your destination and keep it close to you. Refer to it often. Use it to guide your decisions on and off the field. Decide who you will be and how you’ll be remembered and then live the life that you’ve envisioned.

Your legacy doesn’t start during your senior season. Your legacy begins the moment you step foot onto that campus. And it’s too important to leave to chance. Define the player and person you are going to be before you get to college. Pick your destination before you get in the car and go. It just makes better sense, right?

Leave a legacy that is worthy of you. You’ll never regret it. I promise.

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