“Ball!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. It didn’t matter how loud I was. I was wide open, but my teammates would’ve rather taken on three defenders at once than pass to me. Because my school does not have a girls’ soccer team, any girls who want to play are forced to join the boys’ team, an unappealing offer for many. As the only girl on the varsity team my junior year, I was often treated unfairly despite my skills being on par with the boys. I’d been playing club soccer for over eight years and yet, I was always benched while my teammates who had barely touched a ball until that season would start. It frustrated me how my performance alone was never enough to erase the doubts my teammates and coaches had for me.
Image Credit: Fancy Crave from Unsplash
The Mistreatment I Received
I’d been sitting on the bench at a game making commentary on the plays as I watched the team get blown out. I was hoping that the coach would overhear my detailed insight on what was going wrong and think to put me in. I was wrong. At halftime, just as the coach was almost finished yelling at the players, regurgitating all the comments that I had originally made, he looked at me and retorted, “Even players who don’t know anything about soccer can see what you’re doing wrong.” My eyes widened and my jaw dropped in pure shock. I turned to look at our team manager, another girl who had played the previous year but quit due to mistreatment, and she had the same expression.
At practices, the coach would find other ways to intentionally humiliate me. He made every conditioning drill a race, knowing I’d always come in last. “20 pushups and 20 extra sprints to whoever is last.” “That’s not fair,” I responded. I knew that he knew what he was doing. This wouldn’t have been a race had I not been there. “I’m sorry, do you want to make that 30 pushups and sprints? 40?” he shot back. I glared.
After the conditioning drill (yes, I was last), a lot of the boys were folded over or on the floor trying to catch their breath having not conditioned since last year’s season. Though I was slower than everyone else, I was still in shape from club season and was able to stay standing straight. After the coach gave a long lecture about the importance of having to get back in shape, he pointed me out as an example. I glared again, making a point to look around at my teammates breathing heavily on the floor, but he easily dismissed me.
Finally, as I united my laces at the end of one practice, I overheard a team huddle I wasn’t invited to. “You wouldn’t want her taking your spot,” my coach said as a threat to motivate the boys. That was the final straw. It was clear that I wasn’t wanted or tolerated there.
Image Credit: Chaos Soccer Gear from Unsplash
The Turning Point
I talked to some of my friends on the team, ranting about the whole situation and getting angrier as I did. I felt like few of them actually felt empathy for me and understood what I was going through while the others told me I was “just being dramatic.” I told them it was hard to understand unless they were put in my position. The little things that I noticed about how I was being treated easily went over their heads because it was happening to me, not them. I continued to advocate for myself. I wanted to be assessed by my effort and skill, not by shallow assumptions.
However, the few friends I had that actually trusted me were enough to change everything. They handed me the ball when no one else would or offered to be my partner during warmups when no one else did. Despite initial backlash from some, I realized that by advocating for myself, I didn’t need to convince everyone. It only took a couple people to trust me to shift how others began to see me as well as how I began to see myself.
Even now, there are some people who still don’t see the value in me as a player and maybe never will. But instead of waiting to be welcomed in a space that was very clearly designed against me, I know now that I need to step forward to create my own opportunities. While the number of girls on the team has drastically declined from the past few years, I hope that this will change in the near future and girls will be encouraged to open new doors for each other to rework the team’s current dynamic.