“I started soccer because my sister played it and she like it so my parents got me into it. I tried playing softball too but I was always missing softball to go to soccer because it was more intense so I just chose soccer. Through high school I played volleyball and I really enjoyed it but soccer was my main sport so I just stuck with it.
My parents keep me going, they push me and motivate me to do things. There‘s been points where I’ve been like, ‘oh I don’t know if I want to play’ but they are like ‘you don’t have to play if you don’t want to but you seem to enjoy it and you’ll miss it.’ So they push me to keep going.
Since I lived in Langley I play for Surrey United, I was always being overlooked there, I really didn’t get to play that much. I was so young and I didn’t really know what was happening until my mom was like you’re not getting what you deserve. So I moved to a Vancouver team, I was having to make that commute, committing to it so much. I was starting, I was playing, got moved up a year because I was doing so well. Then this girl came out of nowhere from a Metro team and she did really well. I remember one game, it was against the top team, I started the game, I was stressed because she was there and she was going to play. I started the game and they took me out at half and usually they don’t do that, at that level, they don’t take you out at half unless they told you they were going to before. It just really messed with me, it messed with me mentally, it made me not perform as much. At the end of the season, since I was playing a year up they were all graduating, and there was only 2 spots on my age team, and we were sticking with the goalie that’s on that team, and competing between me and the other goalie and they couldn’t guarantee me a spot even though she wasn’t on the team (she was a training player). It wasn’t really worth it anymore, like why was I still here?
I really wanted to quit. My dad was just like, he always says this, ‘oh I’m your biggest fan, I’ll never stop supporting you, and this is one of those times where I think you need to keep going, you can quit if you think you really need to, but I think you should keep going.’ So I kept going and went to Douglas.
I say I don’t like soccer sometimes, I say I don’t enjoy it but whenever it’s off season I’m so bored, I know I want to go and play soccer, I miss training and seeing my teams. It’s something I enjoy and if I didn’t have it I wouldn’t be as happy, it was just me realizing what’s making you happy to see that you really enjoy it and stick with it.
I didn’t get cut, it just wasn’t organized properly. I contacted them and was interested playing for the Philippine National Team. They said ‘you could come to tryouts at this time, just send us all your information, you have to get your citizenship.’ I went through all this to get my citizenship, and did all that work but they said ‘oh we thought you were born in 2001, not 2000, so you missed your tryouts for 2000’s.’ I didn’t know why I couldn’t try out with the 2001’s and just put me on the 2000’s team but it was all that work for nothing. I didn’t want to keep going with it.
I wish I followed through with that sometimes, I feel like I would be a lot farther than I am now. I also wish I tried harder during school, it’s just something I always regret now. When I was in grade 12, they made us to write down what advice would you give to coming grade 9’s in your school. I always said make sure you try hard. It wasn’t like I didn’t go to class, I would do everything but I wouldn’t ask for the extra help if I need it so I wouldn’t succeed as much. My grades were low and I felt like I could’ve been going somewhere better, not that Douglas is a bad school, I’m really happy here, but I could be going somewhere education wise if I tried harder in high school, I feel like it’s really affecting me now because my work ethic isn’t where it should be with school.” – Halle Bottrell.