Jose Mendoza Celis '21 Recruiting Profile

Well to start off being able to go to college, being able to play the sport I love, and furthering my academic skills will be a blessing in any school I go to. At around the age of 8 or 9 is when I started getting the interest of playing soccer.  During my childhood I was surrounded with the love of the sport and I felt the energy when we would all gather around to watch soccer, so I decided to join in a team. Freshman year in high school really influenced me to the player and person I am today because it showed me there are other people that are just as dedicated to this sport as I am, and it motivated me to improve myself as a person and as a athlete. An obstacle that  I overcame was in freshman year, to begin with high school soccer was completely different and I didn't know what to expect, it showed me there are better soccer players than me. This pushed me to be just as good as them. But the main obstacle was not getting as much playing time as I wanted, it brought me down and I lost hope, but instead of just putting myself down ,  I pushed myself to prove everyone wrong and that's what I did all summer. The result of that was getting the varsity coach's eye, and he called my up to play a couple games with the varsity team and to be a starter and get more playing time. One idea I learned from playing soccer, is that it is okay to make mistakes as long as you learn from them. Second, it taught how to lose because you can't win in everything in life. Most importantly, I learned about friendship and teamwork, for example in my former club I was with for 4+ years, even though we aren't together we have been through a lot and I will cherish the memories forever.  My academic goal for high school is to obviously graduate, but most importantly set an example for my little sister.