Sky Justyn Miller '21 Recruiting Profile

              Growing up my older brother( by 4 and a half years) and I trained together with my father whenever we had the time. We would start our day by going on a run, although I would lose every time and I was very motivated to beat him so this happened every morning. After that we would do our core workout, again would lose in that but it made me happy to be bettering myself. Whenever we had the time we would play either if it was with his teammates that where a great amount older and taller and more skilled or just us going across the street to play a pick up game. Having this experience growing up has helped me a lot in noticing what comes out of my hard work.

       On my first Competitive team I played on Wave FC for Courtney Drummond playing up an age group. The coach before her I played for, for two years. When Courtney took over he thought I should play my own age group, but that just motivated me. If you don't know Courtney Drummond I suggest for you to do so, because she can change any player. The reason why I say this is because she was willing to take me on and give me and the team a challenge. Every practice we would start off with fitness, more intense then you would probably want a ten year old doing. When we started it, it was just like my morning runs with my brother because I got to watch from behind as their legs went at the same speed but longer legs will win going at the same speed. I hated it, it ate me up so much I couldn't sleep because I felt like I wasn't doing enough, so I trained harder, ran further with my brother in the morning, had my dad take me to the nearest hill or set of stairs to run up. A couple months went by and I was running around everyone like they were the cones. At the end of the season I got MVP on my team and the most assists in the league.

     This was my first real challenge that opened up my eyes to what hard work did, so I can gladly say that, that one coach that thought I should play my own age isn't the only coach that I have proved wrong throughout my youth soccer years. I can also gladly say that I went from playing a small club in my city to playing for Strickers ECNL for Abner Rodgers, Pateadores DA for Daniel Richards, and So Cal Blues for Tad Bobak. My hard work will stay even when my coach or my teammates don't believe in me because I know my worth. I currently am playing in Oregon instead of California for the Portland Thorns for coach Paul Karver, and of course I'm still doing my morning workouts even if its without my brother.