BC Soccer: A New Together

Being thrown into a new environment can be unsettling and hard to adjust to, especially when you feel like you're all alone - that's what college is: a new environment, unsettling, hard to adjust to...but maybe you're not so alone. Joining clubs and other extracurricular activities help by surrounding you with people of similar interests to your own and a common goal. In my case, these people I've chosen to surround myself with are the Berea Women's Soccer team.

It's been a challenge to switch my allegiance from my old team to my new one, but it has been a challenge worth the effort. A team shares a deeper bond than just members of a club. A team goes through preseason together, a team wins together, and a team loses together - you're never alone. The soccer team came a week early to start practicing and conditioning, and during this time we not only built up our calve muscles from running mile after mile, but we also were able to build friendships beyond the field. As a freshman coming to Berea knowing not one person, before orientation I had eighteen familiar faces around campus.

Since orientation, other new faces have become familiar, but the faces come in overwhelming amounts along with other things - mainly school work and labor work. However, no matter how stressful either can get, soccer always keeps this tension in check. Time consuming as it may be, for at least two hours a day I don't have to think about math problems or essays or even in a different language, I just do.