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one of the “top 100 freshman to watch” reflects on his transition from high school to college soccer

written by Steven Amaya

It’s been a crazy year, the transition from high school to college: new, harder classes; a new, more competitive team. Oneonta, where Hartwick College is located, though only a few hours away by train from where I grew up in Queens New York, felt like a different planet. I quickly learned that it is all about controlling fear. The fear of the rising level of play, the increasing responsibility in both soccer and school, the amount of distractions I encountered. Will I fit into the team, the school? Will I get playing time as a freshman? Can I take advantage of opportunity? It’s a lot of pressure, in the shadow of the soccer hall of fame no less. In my jump from high school to college soccer, just as in what seems my entire life, I have found my ability to manage fear to be the determining factor for excellence or failure.

life and soccer. soccer and life.

Fear is nothing new to me. I have been surrounded by fear all throughout my life. Maybe I should think like my high school coach, who told Adam at TIAS almost three years ago that soccer is the easy part. But it’s hard to separate the two sometimes, soccer and life. I grew up in a low-income family not really in the ghetto but certainly not on Park Avenue. My parents moved to the outer borough of NYC from Columbia. Nobody in my family has attended college, and some didn’t even finish high school. Forget soccer, heading off to Hartwick was a huge responsibility for me. But it was soccer that helped get me here.

Again, soccer and life; they are hard to separate.

I was blessed with quick feet and a love of the game handed down from my father. I was perhaps a normal inner city kid, as long as that kid spent all of his or her free time either playing soccer or training. My entire life has always revolved around soccer. It’s hard to separate the two, and frankly, I’d rather not. My father would probably agree. In 2000, he founded a small soccer academy in Queens called The Millennium Soccer Kids (www.tmskids.com - go here for contact info) after the crazy Y2K millennium hype. Everybody is now part of the family business. My mother helps my dad with the administration side of the academy, while my older brother and I help when we are around, picking up and dropping off equipment, registering teams for tournaments, sometimes even teaching when a coach is unavailable. Soccer will always be in my family in one way or another. That fact has no doubt helped my game, but also added pressure for me to succeed. Pressure turned to fear in high school.

As I got older, the game got less fun. It happened gradually I guess, but looking back it seems that all of a sudden it became about championships and personal recognition. It was hard at times to find the fun when sport came so close to feeling like work. Playing for a high school soccer powerhouse like Martin Luther King had something to do with that. Beyond my not wanting to let my family down, now I had this team, a second family, depending on me to uphold a tradition. The minute I put on that jersey with the sewn-in stars marking the recent 5 city titles in a row, expectations were sky high. Initially we lived up to it, winning the championship my sophomore year by a score of 7-0. We lost the championship in overtime my junior year. Senior year came, and I was scared it was the end of the run for King. Over confidence, winning, seems to have a shelf life. When it sits too long, it gets spoiled. The reality that my senior season would go far in determining my collegiate future didn’t help. I needed to start fresh, re-dedicate myself to the game, and find the fun.

I was named team captain. My fear went beyond my own life as I realized it was at least partially up to me to get MLK back on track on top of getting myself into college. My collegiate opportunities could very well hang on a storied program dangling on the edge, I thought. How was I going to affect the change? Most of the guys had been together for three years, and while we may have looked like a U.N. soccer team with Africans, Americans, Ecuadorians, Colombians, Central Americans, and Mexicans, we were family on that field. Some of my fear was misplaced, because while harnessing diversity for a common goal is not easy, we pulled together and went on to win the 9th city championship for MLK in 11 years (editor’s note: they won it again this year). I wanted to share my MVP trophy with my teammates.

I finished 2006 with a bang, back on top. But I knew then I was quickly headed to the bottom as a new, college recruit. So I got a head start on the fear. Having graduated from MLK a semester early, I accepted an invitation from Hartwick to begin immediately after the new year. It gave me chance to get used to the new environment before my first real soccer season the next fall. Regardless of that lead however, I experienced the same fears that all incoming freshman student-athletes did. In a way I was even more afraid then others coming in. I had just come off a great spring season, scoring 5 goals in 5 games, including 2 goals in my debut against Army and a hat-trick two games later against University of Albany. I wasn’t really supposed to even be here, but I set the bar high and didn’t want to see it fall. After that spring tune-up, I felt obligated to maintain that level of play in the fall. Maybe that was unrealistic.

I went into 2007’s fall season with a sprained ankle and huge concerns about whether I would be able to meet everyone’s expectations. Being named as one of the ‘100 freshman to watch’ before the season added even more pressure to my already accumulating fears.

I played through the pain, starting the season in the central midfield for the Hartwick Hawks, a division one program which won a national championship in 1977 and had numerous NCAA tournament appearances, but which has had a rocky last couple of years. First at MLK and now at Hartwick, I know that history always brings with it great responsibility… and more pressure.

Everything seemed to be falling into place. We won our prestigious Mayor’s Cup at home by defeating James Madison University and Seton Hall, 1-0 and 3-0 respectively. We held a record of 3-1 as we were traveling to Philadelphia to play in the University of Pennsylvania tournament.

They weren’t wrong when they said ‘things fall apart’. We tied Lafayette University and lost to the University of Pennsylvania. The team under performed; I wasn’t on my game. It was downhill from there. The pressure to perform well and meet the expectations was becoming overwhelming. We lost a few more games and set a school record by tying 6 games in one season. It was rough; the pressure just kept on piling up. It felt like I was suffocating. Any comparisons to high school were done. This was an entirely different world for me. The kind of domination I witnessed at King was forever a memory. Every day in college is a struggle; in one season I experienced the up and downs of an entire high school career.

As a student-athlete it is hard to focus on schoolwork when things aren’t going positively on the field. I fell victim to the fear. I couldn’t be bothered to excel in class. I got really down on myself. Fortunately I was blessed to be around a great group of experienced guys who helped me through tough times and assured me that all players had rough patches in their careers. I had three more years of college ball left in my locker they told me, and I should just make the best of the rest of the year. Otherwise, in no time I would be looking back upon my college soccer career and regretting not being able to make the best of it. I’ve experienced highs and lows in life and in soccer, but nothing prepared me for the roller coaster ride of freshman year.

With the help of my teammates I picked up my self-respect and threw it all on the field. I began to pick my game up in both training sessions and matches. We began to play some of the best soccer we had all year including a huge win against Buffalo at their place that gave us a home playoff game in the Mid-American Conference. Although we were knocked out in the semifinals of conference play against the same Buffalo team, we were able to walk off and look back at our season and say that we tried our best. Very few times did teams out play us and us our coach said most of the time “we didn’t lose, we just ran out of time.” and we had fun.

Individually I ended the season playing really well. Although my stats only included one goal and three assists, I am able to say that I had a successful and valuable first season in college. I was lucky to receive second-team all conference honors. Like my teammates said, I’ve got three more years to build on this season.

I found my first year was pretty similar to a lot of players out there; I only wish I could have known that earlier. The transition from high school to college is not easy to deal with; it is literally a whole new ball game. The sport is more physical, players are much more athletic, and the expectations of both players and coaches are much higher. Constant effort and commitment are a must; work ethic and desire can overshadow good soccer and technique. In college soccer good teams may be very successful but for the most part it is the team who wants it the most that will go the furthest. It is safe to say that any team can beat any other any given day, it all depends on who really came out to play.

Maybe the most valuable lesson I learned looking back on this season is that consistency is a must. You must come out to play your best stuff day in and day out. If you don’t, you are guaranteed to lose something precious: playing time, goals, games. Even if it’s obviously not your day, giving everything on the field will always be good enough for your coach and your team. You cannot be blamed for playing poorly or losing if you have done your best.

Distractions find a way of getting into a team. Everybody has to be pulling in the same direction towards the same goal. Different directions means pulling each other apart. Danger manifests on the field and in training if you don’t focus. College soccer is a different level and only the most dedicated individuals and teams will succeed. Of course there are always distractions such as parties and friends but it is those who regulate those distractions during the season that can enjoy success on and off the field.

I needed goals to focus on. Setting goals kept me from aimlessly playing a game without meaning. Goals will allow you to measure your own progress. Short term goals allow you to stay focused and motivated when you accomplish one of them. Long term goals will give you a complete sense of accomplishment and fulfillment that will give you the chance to realize that the hard work does pay off rather than working hard and not seeing positive results.
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many thanks to Steven for taking the time to write about his experiences for TIAS. Hopefully we can talk him into keeping us up to date as his career progresses. Does his reflection have you thinking about your life in soccer? You too can be a part: Send your Diary Project entries in now.