At Piedmont Middle School, a kid could run track or play tennis, but everyone wanted to be on the soccer team. Piedmont and the surrounding towns were pretty small, so instead of having separate girls and boys teams, each school had one team made up of both girls and boys. Laura had dreamed of earning glory for the team Los Halcones ever since the first grade when her older brother Toni won in the county middle school championship. Now he was away at college on a soccer scholarship. The day she joined the team as a sixth-grader, she felt like she could fly.

But, unfortunately, her joy didn’t last. She spent most of the season on the bench.

Walking to the car after the last game of the season, Laura tried to smile at her mother. Having spent yet another game sitting on the bench, Laura hadn’t even broken a sweat. “Well, at least you don’t have to wash my uniform,” she joked, but she could feel tears in her eyes. Her mother said, “You still have chances. Don’t lose heart. Toni once made the same mistake. And now you can watch soccer videos to learn more skills when sitting there.” Laura could only shake her head.

Lying in bed that night, Laura thought back to her first game, the day of her huge mistake.

“Pass, pass, pass!”

“Clear that ball!”

Voices yelled from every side. Laura ran nervously in front of the goal (球门) as both teams rushed down the field. She knew the children in green were her teammates. Those in blue were on the other team. At that time, a boy on the opposing team had the ball when a battle for that ball broke out a few feet from her. Green and blue uniforms swirled (打转) around her, and Laura could barely keep track of the ball. Then, suddenly, it came her way!

“Laura, I’m open!” one of her teammates called from near the sideline. Then Laura kicked the ball.

But the ball went in the completely wrong direction!

Sitting on the bench for game after game, Laura decided to tell Toni that she wanted to quit.

Jumping Over Boundaries

When I was in elementary school, we had an annual sports day. Girls could do many things like hopscotch, jump rope, tetherball, and dodgeball, except high jumping. Only boys could do high jumping.

That’s what I wanted to do — high jumping. So I went to the coach.

“Girls don’t do high jumping,” the coach said. “Girls have all these other things they can do.” He excitedly described how much fun it would be.

I’d been high jumping in the backyard with my five brothers for years. Although I am a girl, I did high jumping pretty well. My brothers could rarely beat me. Whenever my back crossed the bar, that feeling is extremely wonderful. I went home and told my mother what the coach had said. My mother, a small, thin woman only four feet eleven inches tall, said, “I think we should go visit him.”

“Visit who?” I asked confusedly.

“The headmaster.”

“Visit the headmaster?” I was terrified. Would I get in trouble? Would my mother and I be crossing boundaries we shouldn’t cross?

My mom and I went to Mr. White’s office. “Linda wants to do the high jump,” my mother said.

“Mrs. Martinez, you don’t understand. This is the tradition of our Annual Sports Day,” he said.

“But Mr. White, I don’t know where it says that girls cannot do this.”

The headmaster couldn’t find any rules that said girls couldn’t do the high jump. “I have to think about this,” he said at last.

When we got home, my mom told me something I would always remember: this wasn’t just about me. “Maybe other girls want to do this, too,” she said.

My mother waited a week, but still didn’t get the headmaster’s reply. So she walked over to the school again. “Mr. White, please. I ask you this not for me and not for Linda, but let’s just see how it works.” In the end, Mr. White agreed.

I stood on the field of the high jumping competition.

To my surprise, some of the cheers I got were from boys!

From an early age, Patti Wilson was told that she was an epileptic (癫痫患者). However, she was a lively and enthusiastic girl, looking at her illness as simply “an inconvenience”. She never focused on what she had lost, but on what she had left. One day, Patti said to her father, who was a morning jogger, “Daddy, I’d really love to run with you every day, but I’m afraid I’ll have an epileptic fit.”

Her father told her, “Don’t worry, my girl. I know how to handle it! Let’s start running then!”

It was a wonderful experience for the father and daughter to run together every day. After a few weeks, the ambitious girl told her father, “Daddy, What I’d really love to do is to break the world’s long-distance running record for women.” The father checked the Guinness Book of World Records and found that the farthest any woman had run was 80miles.

That year, she completed her run to San Francisco, which is a distance of 400 miles. She was wearing a T-shirt, reading, “I Love Epileptics”. Her father ran every mile at her side, and her mom, a nurse, followed in a motor home behind them in case anything went wrong. But nothing happened at all while she was running.

As a senior high school student, Patti announced that she was determined to run from her hometown up to the White House, which is a distance of more than 3000 miles away. Her classmates got behind her. They built a giant poster that read, “Run, Patti, Run!” This has since become her motto and the title of a book she later has written.

On her second marathon in Portland, she had her foot injured.

Half a year later, Patti ran in Washington and finally shook the hand of the President.

My dad and I had been looking forward to the Stale cross-country race of my senior year of high school, which would be the climax (顶点) of my existence.

I was the fastest runner on my team, and I was supposed to make it into the top fifteen. We had been working towards this race for three years. It was everything to me, and it was everything to my dad. He was a runner and was wild with joy by my success in running. He made it to every race, even flying home early from business trips to see me run. I always listened for his voice, which rang above the crowd-telling me to relax my arms, calling out my time. He pushed me. He cheered for me. He believed in me. We spent countless hours on the sandy canals of Arizona. Breathing in the dust of the desert, the blossoms of the orange trees, and the terrible smell of the dairy farm, we made our way across the city. We pounded miles and miles into our running shoes, marking with every step the path to greatness. It was a journey that was just ours. A dream passed on from one generation to the next.

Then the big day came. It was hotter than normal - too hot. My throat felt like a field of cotton, cracked with the summer heat, as I waited for the gun to fire. I gazed out at the crowd; dozens of familiar faces from church and school flickered across my view. They had come for me. They were counting on me. I saw my dad set his watch, worry and excitement etched across his face. With the sound of a gunshot, the race began.

For the first two and half miles, I felt great. I had never before been so ready for something. The weeks leading up to the race were filled with hard practices and a strict diet. The scorching sun beat upon my back, blinding me with its brilliance. Nothing was going to stop me, though.

However, without warning, my strength was running out.

I whispered, “I’m so sorry I disappointed you, Dad.”

Chasing a Dream

I will never forget that November day. It was hotter than normal — too hot. My throat felt like a field of cotton, cracked with the summer heat, as I waited for the gun to fire. This was the day we had waited so long for. I looked out at the crowd; dozens of familiar faces flashed across my view. They had come for me. They were counting on me. I saw my dad set his watch, with worry and excitement on his face. Adrenaline (肾上腺素) pumped through my body, and the race began.

For the first two and a half miles, I felt great. I had never before been so ready for something. The weeks leading up to the race were filled with strictly controlled practices and a strict diet. My friends hadn’t seen me in weeks, but they understood the sacrifice required to make my dream a reality.

My dad and I had been working towards this race for three years. It was everything to me, and it was everything to my dad. He was a runner and was excited by my success in running. He made it to every race, even flying home early from business trips to see me run. I always listened for his voice — telling me to relax my arms, calling out my time. He pushed me. He cheered for me. He believed in me. We spent countless hours on the sandy canals. Breathing in the dust of the desert, the blossoms (花簇) of the orange trees, we made our way across the city. We pounded miles and miles into our running shoes, marking with every step the path to greatness.

But without warning, when I was 200 yards away from the finish line, my legs stopped working. My lungs fought to take in enough air, and my feet transformed into cement (水泥) bricks. I still don’t know what happened in those last few moments. Nothing I could do would make them hold my weight. They were as weak as jelly.

Even though I knew my dreams of victory were destroyed, I had to finish the race.

“I’m so sorry I disappointed you,” I whispered to Dad.

No one is born a winner. People make themselves into winners by their own efforts. I learned this lesson from an experience many years ago. I took the head coaching job at a school in Baxley, Georgia. It was a small school with a weak football program. The school took part in the league matches every year. However, it never ended well. We were more of the audience, watching and cheering instead of sweating out in the fields.

Fortunately, the school held the tradition that the school’s old team was to play against the new team at the end of spring practice. For lack of resources, the old team bad no coach, and they didn’t even practice to prepare for the game.

I was assigned (指派) as the coach of the new team, which was why I was excited. I believed that we were going to win, but to my disappointment, we were defeated. I couldn’t believe I had got into such a situation. Thinking hard about it, I tried to figure out the reason and what I should do next.

It didn’t take long before I came to realize that my team was depending on me. Without proper guidance or previous experience, my team was at a loss what to do. I had to change my attitude so that I could bring out the best in them about their ability and potential.

I would let my action do the talking. First, I started doing anything I could to help them build a little pride. I could see their spirits lifted, with their head held high in great confidence. Most importantly, I began to treat them like winners. Only when they regarded themselves as winners could they willingly invest time and energy.

This summer, the other teams enjoyed their vacations.

Six months later, football season started.

10 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。

My husband Larry and I have always had our basic values in common, but our interests are far apart. I love the arts, especially opera. He’s a huge sports fan of hockey (曲棍球). His big passion is NHL hockey. He’s shared season tickets with his friends for years.

There were times when we attended the games with other couples. The rest of our group was enthusiastic about the game, even the women. They knew all the players and how to pronounce their long names. I enjoyed participating in the National Anthem, but aside from the meal, that was the only thing I enjoyed about our hockey nights. Instead of appreciating the good seats we had, I’d complain that it was too cold there. When the game started, my phone would be on my lap. Most of the time, I’d be texting or daydreaming.   Sometimes, my texting would be interrupted when the home team scored. I knew they scored because everyone jumped up and exchanged high-fives and shouts.

What was so exciting about a group of grown men on ice hitting something with a stick? It was beyond me. I started to wonder. Why was I the only one not enjoying myself? As I looked around at thousands of people cheering and getting increasingly excited, I decided to at least give it a try — for my husband’s sake, if not for my own.

It took a few games, but soon I learned who the goalie (守门员) was, who our latest player was, who had been traded and from where. When the other team scored, I eventually felt great disappointment with the rest of my crowd. I searched the program to see which part of the globe our players had come from.

注意：

1. 续写词数应为150左右；

2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

I was surprised that I began to like the games I watched.

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I felt excited when I heard that our city would have the first women’s hockey team.

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