Goodbye, Soccer: By Emmalynn Schnitzer
Photo by Jay Ruzicka
Written by Emmalynn Schnitzer after graduating from Dean College.
Dear 12-year-old Emmalynn,
Oh, what I would give to be in your shoes right now. Young, healthy, and doing the one thing I wish I could do most right now: playing soccer.
Right now, you are probably playing for your first off-Cape club team, and you have absolutely no idea how many amazing experiences you are about to have. You will go on to play for some incredibly competitive teams, even at the ECNL level. You will represent your state and your region for the Olympic Development Team and travel to places you would have never imagined, like Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and New Jersey. When high school rolls around, you will start on varsity all four years and win the Cape and Island League title. In college, you will receive D1, D2, and D3 offers and eventually commit to Dean College. Here, you will start and play nearly every minute of every game, becoming an extremely integral part of the team.
This sport has led you to connect with so many beautiful people and see so many new places. The people you have met come from different walks of life, from varying parts of the country to different parts of the world. Your coaches also coached collegiate teams at all levels, and some even coached professionally. Girls you played with will go on to represent their country, play collegiate soccer against you, and even become your teammates later on. You have formed lifelong friendships with countless coaches, players, athletic trainers, and photographers who will continue to support you throughout the many stages of life to come.
Thanks to soccer, you have had the privilege of seeing places you would have never seen otherwise: Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and New Jersey. You played at professional stadiums and national training facilities and competed in front of hundreds of college coaches at once at the biggest recruiting events on this side of the country.
While there were so many highs, there was a fair share of lows. When you are 15, you will fracture your back and be out for 8 months, your first major injury. The day you get cleared, the world will shut down for COVID, delaying your return to play even longer. At 18, the spring before you are supposed to start college, you fracture your knee. You need two major surgeries: holes drilled, screws put in and removed, and bone shaved. 530 days will pass; you will have lost 25 pounds of muscle and have to decommit from the college you were originally committed to. All your friends will go off to school to follow their dreams while you are relearning how to walk, run, kick a ball, and have the confidence to try it all again. And to top it off, your senior year of college, what was supposed to be your best season yet, was consumed by a nearly season-long MCL sprain, something that you are still struggling to heal from to this day.
But regardless of those struggles, it was still the hardest thing to let go of. Dad is trying to find other ways to fill his time other than watching you play. He doesn’t say it much because he doesn’t want to make you sad, but the highlight of his week was cheering you on at games, spending long car rides with you on the way to practice, and training with you in the yard. Mom is sad too. She didn’t understand many of the rules, and it scared her to death whenever anyone would touch you, but she would dress up in your team’s merch and root for you every chance she could. Nana, Bapa, Uncle Lee, Aunt Kaitlin, Annie, and countless other family members and close friends would use your games as an excuse to get together and support you. They miss doing so.
And there are countless things you miss: being a part of a team, long bus rides with friends, goofing around at practice, and knowing that, in your best and worst moments, you had people who knew exactly what you were going through to lift you up. The coaches who became a bonus mom or dad, and the teammates who became sisters. You miss pushing your body to its limits and showcasing the hours of training and skill you have developed. There is nothing more rewarding than the feeling of leaving everything out on the field and having others see your efforts, or being able to show your creativity on the field and put on a show for all who were watching.
Photo by Jay Ruzicka
Life looks different now. The injuries are catching up with you, but you finally have the time to properly rehab them. You picked up sewing, lifting, cooking, and hiking, among many other things, to pass the time now. While they are all fulfilling, none of them truly fills the void.
But you are learning things about yourself: how your passion is to push your body to its limits and exercise your blessings every day because you know what it’s like to lose that privilege. You thrive on moving your body, being outdoors, and connecting with others, all things that stemmed from your love of soccer.
And while soccer at this stage in your life will never look the same, it doesn’t mean it’s gone forever. You still play pickup with friends, juggle in the backyard, watch the professional games, and run your fitness tests every now and then just to prove to yourself you still have it. Soccer will never fully be absent from your life; it just looks different now. And that is okay.
There was once a time when you thought that the day you had to hang up your cleats, your life would be over. You had no other purpose, no desires, no worth. But that could not be further from the truth. You graduated with your Bachelor’s in Exercise Science in just 3.5 years with a 3.95 GPA. Soon, you will begin your Doctorate of Physical Therapy program so you can help other athletes just like you who want nothing more than to step out onto the field again and do what they love. After 12 years of hard work and resilience, you can finally say that you are at a place with your mental health that doesn’t scare you. And to top it all off, you have collected a support system of beautiful people around you who value what you bring to the table. There’s a long list of bucket list items that you are slowly checking off.
It’s been 18 years or so, and suddenly, on a random Tuesday in October at 8:30 p.m., my life was forever changed. How do you live without something you don’t remember living without? Honestly, I do not yet know the answer to that question. But from what I have gathered so far, it is one step at a time, surrounding yourself with loved ones, and exploring passions that you have yet to discover.
You have an incredible, beautiful, crazy, and eventful next 10 years of your career to live out. It wasn’t always pretty, but every second was worth it. I would do everything all over again one thousand times if it meant I could feel half of what I felt through it all. You will be more than okay. Enjoy it for me, please. I am so proud of you, all you have overcome, and all you will accomplish.
Here’s to what comes next, for both of us!
With love,
22-year-old Emmalynn
Photo by Jay Ruzicka