1 . Don’t Take the Fun Out of Youth Sports

When I joined a private football league a few years ago, the sport meant everything to me.

My coach said that I had lots of potential, and I became captain of my _________. That was before all the fun was taken out of _________. At first, everyone on the team got _________ playing time. Then the team moved up to the top division after winning all its games, and the _________ started. Some parents, who had paid the coach extra so their daughters could have _________ one-on-one training, got angry when she didn’t give them more playing time in our _________. The coach was _________ . The new coach, however, took all the fun out of the game: all we did during practice was _________. I always wished to God that it would rain so we would not have the _________. Of course, all teams run drills(操练); they are __________. But we ran so much that, afterwards, we had trouble __________. Younger people shouldn’t be doing exercises __________ for 18-year-olds. I was very thin __________ I started football, but as a member of this team I wouldn’t eat much, because I was afraid of being too __________ to run. I feared making mistakes, and the added pressure caused me to make more than my usual __________. Is all this pressure necessary?

I __________ up leaving the football team. Four other girls did the same, and two of them stopped playing football completely. That’s __________, because they had so much potential. They were just burned-out with all the pressure they felt from the coach or their parents. I continued playing football at school and __________ my love for it. I joined a private team coached by my school coach. When I started playing for him, he told me I needed to __________ because I looked nervous. After I __________ down, I played better. When you enjoy something, it’s a lot easier to do it well.

2 . One summer weekend, my wife, son and I entered a running race on mountain trails(小径). When the race started, our son took off ______, but my wife and I stayed back and ran together, enjoying the scenery. After some time, while running down a narrow,   ______ trail, I walked on a big stone and had a ______, and in the process, I jammed (挤) my toe pretty hard. I realized I’d got my toe ______, but I didn’t take off my shoe and sock to check my _____. Instead, my wife and I kept running.

____, after going about half the course, I realized my watch on my wrist was ______. Slightly discouraged, I encouraged my wife to go on _____, and I would return to see if I could find it. After running back for some time, I ____ my broken watch off the trail. I picked it up, and quickly put it into my pocket. Then I ______down the trail. Once I was near the end, I saw my son, who had finished 30 minutes earlier, had run back up the trail to ______ me. He ran with me to the end.

____it turned out, both my wife and son had won first place in their age groups, but I had no chance of placing. As I sat down to ____ after the race, I decided to take off my shoe and check my toe, and I found that my sock was in blood. Pain and it hurt, but there was a bright side. I ____ to receive any award in my age group, but the race _____ had a special award which was given for the most injured runner in the race.

So, how does this _____ relate to you and me in everyday life? Although everyone wants to live a life of comfort, the _____ is that we often face pain and_______. However, the key to real happiness is ______ pain into something positive. In other words, ______ can make us stronger if we let them.

3 . Challenges of my Life

Many high school students tend to follow the crowd and not to do what they believe to be the right thing. I was one of them. It took me two years of high school to realize that I was capable of standing on my own two feet and taking up the _______ of wrestling, which has had a long history in my _______.

The tipping point (临界点) for me was the constant urging of my family to _______. I can remember my grandpa telling me the story of _______ he won his championship match and the _______ he had when they announced his name as New York State Champion. I never could have _______ that feeling till the night I won my first match. The one thing that scared me away from this sport was the _______ which was a tight fitting singlet that exposed my entire body. I also never realized the _______ demand that wrestling took——the long hours of learning new moves and lifting weights. And the mental _______ for this sport is overwhelming, too. Also, I had to learn to __________ my time between school, home, work, family, and friends.

Wrestling is more of an individual sport but it also __________ the help and support of a team to be successful. The coaches taught us to __________ ourselves and also the opponents that we face on the mat. __________ a team at Christmas, we were able to bring toys to Upstate Hospital cancer unit for the __________ children who were facing a major illness and could not be home for the holidays with their families. This taught me a valuable __________ not to be afraid of those things that frighten me. It also made me __________ that I need to live each day to the fullest.

Wrestling has __________ me that I am capable of being my own individual. The __________ that I have gained has allowed me the possibility of furthering my wrestling __________ later. From this sport, I now know that in order to be __________ you must not be afraid to try something new.