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| Vibrant Girls, Vib-rant Girls by: Clover Lee Add the Mill Valley, California’s Arsenal Girls’ Soccer Team, one very gray, rainy day, one muddy soccer field, and a whole lot of laughter. While most of the population choose to stay inside and avoid the rain, these girls are out on a mission. They are here to accomplish a similar goal - to play soccer and win. These girls are dynamic and vibrant with energy. A certain song from Q-Tip |
| Q-Tip came to mind, “Special girl, real good girl… vibrant thing, vibrant thing…” Extracurricular activities, along with school, homework, hanging out with friends and spending time the family stretches your time, until one of the aforementioned categories of your life starts to unravel. For these reasons, many people choose not to take on extracurriculars. So I asked the Mill Valley, California Arsenal Girls’ |
| Soccer Team why they choose to play on this team. The unanimous answer was, “Because it’s just fun.” These girls definitely seem to have a lot of fun, but with any activity, it is only fun if there is work put into it. Jane Lee, 13, says, “As a team member I’m responsible for myself, such as being as healthy and as in shape as possible to perform well for the team. The decisions you make affect a lot of other people and as a team member, you have to think, “How will my actions affect the rest of my team?” The girls on the Arsenal also described specific criteria that must be met to create a successful team. Obviously skill is essential, but more than that the girls described the importance of a team dynamic the girls, the need for team unity and the ability for individual members to work cohesively for one specific goal. |
According to Jane, no team can be successful without a certain sense of camraderie, trust and mutual respect for other team mates and the coaches. The time spent together in grueling practices and encouragement during play time not only develops an individuals role in the team, but helps improve individual’s internal self confidence by proving to themselves that they can commit themselves successfully and are in fact an important member of the team. It is a new year. Many resolutions have been made to improve oneself externally, such as exercising more, but many more have been made to become a better person. The best way to mesh the two resolutions for any age individual seems to be one answer. Join a team sport; it can do a lot of good things! |
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