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INTRODUCTION – ROOKIE: Surviving Your Freshman Year of College Soccer
Abraham Lincoln once said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I’ll spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Honest Abe knew that there’s no substitute for preparation.
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.
Chapter 2: GOALS – ROOKIE Surviving Your Freshman Year of College Soccer
As you define and design your legacy, it’s only natural that you will set some goals for yourself. Fantastic! You should have athletic goals and academic goals and goals for whatever else inspires you. Speaking from a strictly soccer standpoint, let me give you a few worthwhile goals for your freshman year. You can tweak them however you like and you are welcome to add others, but these will give you a running start.
Chapter 3: THE BUBBLE – ROOKIE Surviving Your Freshman Year of College Soccer
When I was seventeen, I couldn’t wait to get out of my house and on to college! I was obsessed with the idea of sweet freedom – the chance to set my own rules and be my own person and drink from the cup of independence! College was going to totally rock! And believe me, it totally did.
Chapter 4: MAKE RELATIONSHIPS – ROOKIE: Surviving Your Freshman Year of College Soccer
Imagine this: It’s the opening morning of preseason and the very first thing you’ll encounter is a fitness test. You’ll stand on the goal line with teammates spanning out on either side of you. You look at the teammate to your left, then the teammate to your right. You realize that you don’t know either of their names, yet here you are, on your first day of college soccer, competing against them for a chance to represent your university.
Chapter 5: PREPARING FOR PRESEASON – ROOKIE: Surviving Your Freshman Year of College Soccer
Preseason is an audition and no one lives under more scrutiny than the rookies. You want to make preseason your showcase, and you want to give your coaches and teammates every reason to take you seriously, so let’s start out with a few simple pointers.
Chapter 6: YOU BELONG – ROOKIE: Surviving Your Freshman Year of College Soccer
Preseason can be an extremely intimidating proposition. A lot of very good rookies crumble, and not because they lack talent. They crumble because they can’t get their head right.
Chapter 7: THE FITNESS TESTS – ROOKIE: Surviving Your Freshman Year of College Soccer
The fitness tests...the three most dreaded words in college soccer. But since nearly every coach employs them, you’re going to have to just accept them as a part of life and put your head down and grind them out.
