Resilience is a choice

If there's one word that describes my story over my footballing career, its resilience. It’s shaped who I am as a goalkeeper, and as a person. Heading into my third season at Cal, it would be easy for someone who doesn’t know me to assume I’ve had it easy or that it was just pure ability that got me to where I am. It couldn’t be further from the truth. Three schools in five years, horrendous battles with mental health. Problems off the field. Kicked out of high school. I should have never made it here. Even how I ended up at Cal was pure luck. But, sometimes all you need is a foot in the door and a relentless work ethic. 

 I started playing soccer in fifth grade, pretty late compared to most. I had played tennis mostly before that, some baseball as well. I had really good hand-eye coordination, so I naturally gravitated towards the goalkeeping position. I was hooked immediately. There was something so primal about wanting to be the last line of defense and ruin striker’s days. However, although I was pretty skilled for someone just starting out, mentally I was so weak. I’d cry every time I’d concede a goal, and it affected how well I could make the next play, or the next play after that. That became a theme as I grew older. Throughout middle school, I started to be able to do things other kids couldn’t do. I knew I was more skilled, but mentally, I was fragile, and I had a quick fuse. I’d lash out, on and off the field. It killed my game. No matter how skilled I was, my value instantly went to zero because of how little control over my emotions I had. It was a hard lesson that took me years to figure out. 

 Throughout high school, it continued, but even worse. I left my local high school after my freshman year as my parents wanted me to attend a private school with my twin brother. I hated the new school so much that I actively tried to get myself kicked out until I actually succeeded, getting kicked out of school halfway through my junior year. I was a highly anxious, depressed individual who couldn't sit still in a classroom to save my life. I had abysmal grades, I lost almost all of my friends. My life was going down an extremely dark path that to this day haunts me. So how did an extremely troubled child, who was kicked out of one of the most prestigious private schools in the country, end up at the number one public university in the entire world? I’ll tell you how. Pure resilience.

I poured my heart into the game. To me, when I strapped on those gloves, I could be whoever I wanted to be, and do whatever I wanted to do. I was my escape. Those gloves to me were the equivalent of Batman's mask. It was my way of expressing myself through all of the pain and trauma I’d caused myself and others. It was like I was living two separate lives, the life where I was a loser and had no future, and the life where I was the absolute man, the life where I could make any and every save there was to make. Those became the two voices in my head, the voice that told me I’d never amount to anything, the voice that kept telling me I wasn’t enough and that there were thousands of keepers my age better than me, and the voice that would reassure me that when I was out there on that field with my gloves on, that I was the best in the world and that when I was in the zone I could do absolutely anything and everything that I wanted to. We all have these voices in our heads, but understand that each day when you wake up, YOU have to choose which voice to listen to. It's a choice.

Unfortunately, throughout the recruiting process, the first voice was the voice predominantly speaking to me. I was lazy, I didn’t email any schools, and I didn’t put any effort into attending camps. To be honest, I started training lazier, I told myself that I’d just enjoy club until it ended, and then figure out the rest of my life from there. I remember getting a phone call from a guy named Kevin Hudson, the head coach at SMU, and thinking that this was going to be the easiest thing ever. If I wasn’t even trying, and a head coach of a massive school was reaching out to me, surely I’d be fine right? No, I wouldn’t be. I didn’t follow up, I let it die out, and I ended up committing to a small D3 college in the middle of nowhere Ohio called Wilmington. I put on close to 30 lbs that spring/summer, and showed up to camp 225 lbs looking like a marshmallow. 

For whatever reason, I somehow fluked success. I walked into a weird situation where all the other keepers just weren’t that good. Even as the most out of shape mentally fragile keeper at the school, technically I was running circles around those kids and that alone was enough to get me onto the field. And that when the second voice started to ring loud. I was a gamer, for some reason when I stepped onto the collegiate field, I just kept putting in performance, after performance, after performance. I earned the respect of the older players. I shedded weight like it was nothing. I helped lead one of the projected worst teams in the conference to a conference championship game. I can’t logically explain why. It was a complete fluke. I wasn’t training crazy hard, I wasn’t eating great, I wasn’t sleeping well. I just kept showing up and willing myself to play lights out.

After two seasons at Wilmington, I decided I had enough after the Fall of 2023. I felt like I was ready for a new challenge, and I thought that since I was a two time all conference player, I’d automatically have D1 schools crawling over me. I was so wrong. The only teams who reached out were the powerhouse schools in my conference, as they were the ones who knew how capable I was the most. I made the mistake of leaving Wilmington for another school in the same conference, purely chasing a trophy. Looking back on it, it was a mistake. I moved for all the wrong reasons, and I hated where I ended up. The spring there was terrible, and I was dreading going back for the fall of 2024. 

I came home that summer and started playing with my local semi-pro team to stay in shape. I started working so hard, I never missed a day. This was the turnaround, I told myself. By pure chance, one of the unpaid assistants at Cal Men’s Soccer was the head women’s coach at that same club. He saw me play, and mentioned that Cal was in desperate need of a goalkeeper due to an injury crisis. As I was already in the portal, two weeks later I was signed as a bear. It happened that fast. It was all a blur. I showed up every single day, working as hard as I possibly could. So when my lucky day arrived, I was there to claim it. If I’d have been half assing my life like I was beforehand, he would have seen me and not have mentioned anything. This is proof that If you show up and put in good, honest work every day, you’ll never miss your lucky day, when it comes around, because there’s always luck involved in this game, no matter what anyone says.

However, to be honest, I was not the most deserving of the move, ability wise. I was a good D3 goalkeeper, sure. I’d won many accolades and All-Conference awards and golden gloves and all that. But I wasn’t even close to ready for the ACC. 

 But the difference was, this time I knew I couldn’t mess up this opportunity. This is when I showed the most resilience. Sure, I’d been through some rough things and came out on the other side of it with relative success. But I had never felt the feeling of pure failure on the pitch before. And once I got to Cal, I learned how important failure was. I was so behind, I struggled to keep up. I made so many embarrassing mistakes. I wanted the world to swallow me whole. The first voice came back. Those first few months were some of the hardest months of my life. But I kept going. 

 And let me tell you, the best thing that has ever happened to me was those horrible mistakes and moments. And in the bigger picture, the best things that have ever happened to me were all the mistakes and bad things I did off the field. All the trauma and hurt I’ve been through in my life are hands down the best things that have ever happened to me. As an athlete, especially a goalkeeper, if you’ve not had a difficult time, you can’t truly become a top goalkeeper. 

Being a good goalkeeper and being good at being a goalkeeper are two slightly different things. But to be a good goalkeeper you have to suffer and go through miserable patches in training, you have to make mistakes in games, the whole thing. Because when people try to drag you down, when outside powers are trying to rattle you or a new guy is trying to take your spot, you can sit there and be stoic enough to be calculated and plan through it. It’s easy to coast and go through the motions. I started to push myself harder, knowing that I was inevitably going to fail. Failure is a privilege. And the initial failure made me hate the game. But what I realized was, In order to truly love the game, you have to hate it, and if you don't hate it, good luck trying to love it. 

 I started to improve massively. I made my Cal debut. I established myself as a valuable member of the team. Each time I was given an opportunity, I chose to listen to that second voice. I played lights out all spring. I trained lights out all year. I got so lost in the daily grind that I didn’t even realize when things just started to click, they just did one day. These past couple of years have given me amazing opportunities. I’ve been able to train with top professional clubs in England, I’ve been able to travel all over the country to new places. I’ve had the privilege of pursuing a degree that will set me up for the rest of my life. Just a few years ago I sat on zoom during Covid with the dean of my school, listening to him expel me. Now, I used my athletic ability to get into and succeed at a school that a lot of my perfectly behaved peers with perfect academics couldn’t even get into. I didn’t give up on myself, even when I knew I’d let myself and those around me down. 

What I discovered through all of this is that there is quite literally always a glimmer of hope in the distance for those who choose to never give up on themselves. I’ve made some huge mistakes in my life, massive public mistakes that have put a question mark over my character to this day. I’ve treated people so poorly in the past and it ruined meaningful relationships that I had. I used those mistakes as fuel to make much more resilient choices. In my opinion, resilience is a choice. Everyday when I wake up, to this day, I have to make the choice of which voice I’m going to listen to. And even now, I have terrible days where I let the self-sabotaging voice take over. Recently, I’ve been struggling big time. Nothing in this game is ever smooth sailing, always perfect. We have to go through rough patches here and there to progress. The difference is now, I know how to manage it. I know how to get what I need to get done, done. 

 And all the outside noise that used to absolutely wreck me emotionally became muted. I used to care so much about what people thought about me, my game or whatever. Of course there were people that were saying I didn’t deserve to go to Cal, and all of that. People close to me even, saying how happy they were for me to my face, and then turning around behind my back and saying how much I didn’t deserve it. Everyone wants to see you succeed, but not more than them. So it's important to stay in your own lane and enjoy the isolation of success.

 And it will get lonely. When you truly dedicate your life to something, you’ll slowly lose relationships and friendships here and there that you’ll look back on and realize that it never meant much anyways. Keep your circle small. Embrace some of the loneliness that occurs when you chase a wild dream. The path to being the best version of yourself should be lonely. The loneliness you feel is nothing to be sad about, but instead an indicator that you’re probably on the right path. Everything in life has a true opportunity cost to it. Cutting people off, cutting things off, cutting habits off, it's all uncomfortable. You can't care. You have to realize that every time you cut something negative off, something incredible will usually fill that gap.

The biggest takeaway from all of this is that nobody cares about you. It's only a small small crowd of people like your direct family or extremely close friends that truly care about your every move. So when you make a mistake and you think the world is going to swallow you whole, understand that nobody cares. You zig when you should have zagged, you dropped a ball, so what? NOBODY CARES. The people you seek approval from and are scared to make mistakes in front of are people who in ten, fifteen years, will barely remember who you are. You shouldn't be focused on others, you should be focused on yourself and what you should be doing. That lonely, isolating feeling is something you are going to have to push through. Be resilient. Understand that when you’re pouring your heart and soul into something, you can’t really tell when it clicks, it just eventually does. One day you’ll wake up and realize it was all worth it. 

 The last thought I want to leave any aspiring goalkeeper with is this. Be grateful. Gratitude is one of the strongest forms of power in attracting good things. If you truly feel grateful for the things in your life, good things will continue to happen. I always felt grateful for the small things, and I always used to celebrate those smallest victoties and it shifted my perspective. Now I might be celebrating bigger things but I always celebrate every little good thing that happens to me and I was doing the same before I had any success and accomplishments in the game. I would acknowledge the wins and feel truly grateful for them, and it just gave me more, and more. I still remain grateful through the good and the bad and more comes. 

Nowadays, we all take materialistic things and performance expectations to the extreme, when we all should just be grateful that we wake up in the morning. It's a blessing to have a functioning, healthy body able to compete and work hard. Be appreciative of EVERYTHING. Not only the good, but as I mentioned before, be appreciative of the bad. Because you get to do what you love in the first place! You see people go through their lives, and it's boring, it sucks. Everyday they wake up in the same routine, they go to their same boring jobs, they go home and grab a beer or whatever and they're just waiting to die. Be grateful for what we get to do, it's hard, it's physically taxing, a lot of the time it sucks but you're in the goal and it's meaningful and there's a sense of true purpose in being the last line of defense. Some will never get to experience the emotions, both good and bad, that we routinely feel as goalkeepers. Be grateful that it spins your head. Be grateful for the overwhelming responsibility. Know that not anyone can just do this, it takes a special individual. 

Enjoy the process of making a name for yourself. If you want to stand on top from day one, there's nothing to look forward to. I always had the goal of going D1 and having success at that level but what I realized once I achieved those things was that the whole time, the journey and the people along the way were the reward. Use all the resources you can, take advantage of being young and naive. If I can do it, anyone can ;)