Student athletes in all different sports have to face obstacles in their sports. Whether you decide to react negatively or positively to obstacles is completely up to the athlete themselves. Sarah Avila (10) is one of the many athletes that has faced and overcame an obstacle in their sports career.
Avila’s sports journey began with softball, which she played for the past three years. Avila also ventured into soccer before she discovered what would soon be her favorite and main sport, flag football.
Avila started playing flag football this past spring when Ayala first introduced the sport. Avila enthusiastically joined the program with high hopes of eventually improving her skills and making new friendships in the sport.
During the mini season, Avila started to become comfortable with flag football and continued pursuing her goals. Although she didn’t achieve all the goals she had hoped to accomplish, she had definitely advanced on the road to fulfilling them.
Once the spring mini season was over, Avila continued to pursue softball until the official season started in the fall. However, before the official season started, Avila along with all the other hopeful players who wanted to join flag football had to dedicate their time at the flag football summer camp and tryouts. After much hard work and dedication, Avila successfully made the Junior Varsity (JV) team for flag football. This made her feel excited and motivated to do well this season and improve from the past mini season.
Once the beginning of the season started in August, Avila set new goals for herself that she set out to accomplish this season. Her main goal was to score a touchdown, something she hadn’t done during the mini season in the spring.
During the first game of the season, Avila scored a touchdown, already accomplishing her goal early in the season.
Avila continued to score in a great majority of the games throughout the season. With each touchdown she scored, she felt more and more confident in herself and her motivation and dedication to continue doing well increased greatly.
“My most memorable moment from the season was definitely the game against Yorba Linda and that last minute touchdown that I scored,” Avila said.
Avila became a valuable asset to the JV flag football team and she along with the rest of the athletes on her team and her coaches managed to be successful in their games.
Although everything was looking great for Avila in her first official season, she was hit with a major obstacle. During a flag football tournament game, Avila collided with another player and was struck in the head, resulting in a concussion.
The concussion prevented Avila from playing in the last few games and it was a difficult pill to swallow for her, as she had never expected something like this to happen.
“It felt really disappointing because I wanted to play the last game and be there for my team,” Avila said.
Despite not being able to play in the last few games of the season, Avila made it her job to try and heal in order to be able to attend and support her teammates at their games. She attended every game she could and supported her team in any way that was possible, even if she could not be the one playing on the field.
Now that the season is over and Avila is healed from her concussion, Avila reflects on her season and all the memories she made during the season.
“My flag football experience overall was really fun,” Avila said. “I made a lot of new friends, and I felt like I learned a lot from the sport, mentally and physically.”
Sarah Avila is a perfect example of what it means to have good sportsmanship. Sportsmanship is not just the act of being a respectful and fair player in a sport, it is also the act of being resilient and continuing to face challenges with a good attitude and with hope and willingness to eventually overcome them.
Avila is excited for what the future has in store for her and she hopes to continue her journey as an athlete in the future and years to come.
