"I was a worthy adversary."

A paper by my brother-in-law, circa 7th or 8th grade. Found it on my hard drive a couple of hours ago.

It was going to be one of those days I wouldn’t forget, for the rest of my life. It was Saturday, when I was between the ages of eleven or twelve. During the soccer season at St. Dominic’s, I played rather well for a Seventh grader, I thought, but the main thing was, we were going against Immaculate Conception. Which, we never faced before, it was definitely going to be a rough game, I thought to myself personally.

Now, it was an hour before the game my dad, the coach, of our soccer team was telling me what to do in today’s game. I was one of the outstanding players for our team; I could play any position, which would be given to me. I could play sweeper extremely good, with quickness and strength on my side I was a worthy adversary.

The game had started, tie score, it was rather boring my team had the defense of Immaculate Conception working hard, but on our side it was rather lazy. Somehow a miracle had happened for Immaculate Conception, they had broken our offense and were now barreling down the field extremely quick, both “Wings” on either side, so the two defenders were busy trying to guard their man. I was stuck in the middle, and there he was a tall black kid, at first I was rather afraid. Personally, I thought he was a giant standing around 6’2, he was moving quick and dead at me like a train. He stopped for some reason, and then I noticed his foot rearing back for a kick.

Boom! That soccer ball was heading on a step climb almost going over my head, and it wasn’t near me yet, so not really thinking. A quick plant on my feet and I lunged up into the air, my head and the ball on a one-way collision. It must have been some sight to see I probably got about a foot off the ground, and still rising as the ball neared my predestined collision spot. The crowd was cheering for our team to take the ball back, I could clearer hear all the moms yelling and screaming as the other team closed the gap on our goal.

My blood was pumping to a hardcore stream; I had my adrenaline in me going full blast. I lowered my head, so I wouldn’t be hit in the face. THUD! Almost everyone on the sidelines fell quiet, the moms had stopped cheering and the players just stopped. That ball probably soared about twenty feet into the air, off my head. That was a monster of a kick.

I fell to the ground after that blow to the head; I didn’t feel all right after the header. I fell on my heels and stumbled backwards, either the force of the ball or my senses were knocked out of me, but I stumbled backwards. I regained my balance, the moms still quiet, the two defenders just standing there watching. Our team got the ball and had a full offensive charge going with them. We scored off the defensive stop.

A few hours later, we were driving up to "McDonalds" and my vision went down. I couldn’t see hardly anything my eyes had gone almost completely blind, it was rather scary as I frantically told my mom that I couldn’t see the keys or her arm. My mom got rather jittery to get home.

A day later, still having a horrible head-ache, we went to the doctor and he told me, I had sustained a slight concussion, and that I had migraines from the incident. He told me they would soon go away, and we left. But still, even today sometimes I have horrible headaches and my vision still fades away from that incident, which I could only think, that must have been one hell of a kick.