Julie Ertz - Chase Your Dreams: How Soccer Taught Me Strength, Perseverance, and Leadership

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

Cover design by Kyler Dougherty

Front Cover Photos by John Todd / isiphotos.com ; USA Today

Front Cover image Aerial3 / Getty Images

Interior design by Steve Kuhn

HARVEST KIDS is a trademark of The Hawkins Childrens LLC. Harvest House Publishers, Inc., is the exclusive licensee of the trademark HARVEST KIDS.

Chase Your Dreams

Copyright 2019 by Julie Ertz

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97408

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

ISBN 978-0-7369-7932-0 (pbk)

ISBN 978-0-7369-7933-7 (eBook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ertz, Julie, 1992 author.

Title: Chase your dreams / Julie Ertz.

Description: Eugene, Oregon : Harvest House Publishers, 2019. | Audience: Age 812.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019007321 (print) | LCCN 2019008262 (ebook) | ISBN 9780736979337 (ebook) | ISBN 9780736979320 (pbk)

Subjects: LCSH: Ertz, Julie, 1992 Juvenile literature. | Women soccer playersUnited StatesBiographyJuvenile literature. | Conduct of lifeJuvenile literature. | Christian biographyUnited StatesJuvenile literature.

Classification: LCC GV942.7.E77 (ebook) | LCC GV942.7.E77 A3 2019 (print) | DDC 796.3340922 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019007321

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CONTENTS

V ancouver, 2015. Minute eighty of the World Cup Final.

Almost there , I thought. Stay locked in. Clear the ball out. Ive never been so tired! Shake it off... come on!

I looked around the field, trying to focus. I could see players warming up on the sidelines and talking to the coach. Subs coming in , I thought. Stay on top of the changes .

I couldnt remember ever being this tired. Surely the last ten minutes were almost gone... I glanced at the clock. That was only ten seconds? Youve got to be kidding me!

The crowd had been roaring the whole game, but now, in the last minutes, they were in a frenzy.

Dont get distracted , I ordered myself. We went into a new formation. The faces of all my teammates reflected my exhaustion, but they kept shouting Come on! and Weve got this! The clock kept counting down: three minutes, two minutes...

SO MANY SPORTS, SO LITTLE TIME

People ask me all the time, Did you always know you wanted to be a professional soccer player? The answer to that question is kind of tricky. Its not like I started playing soccer at four years old and knew right away exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. In fact, I tried lots of sports before I fell in love with soccer. My dad was an athlete in high school and college, and he and my mom were big believers in the benefits of playing sports.

My older sister, Melanie, and I were always active. Our parents worked opposite schedules a lot, so when Mom was at work during the day, Dad would take us both out to the park or the playgroundhe says I could hang from the monkey bars when I was six months old. (With him ready to catch me, of course.) When my sister and I got a little older, our parents signed us up for sports. The nice thing about growing up in Arizona was that there was never really a time of year when we couldnt be outside playing: We swam in the summer, we played T-ball and softball, we tried basketball, and finally, we landed on soccer.

Trying all these sports at such a young age was awesome for a few reasons. First, we were always having so much fun outside that my parents didnt have to worry about our watching too much TV or complaining about being bored. It also gave us a chance to see what we liked and what we were good at. I found out pretty quickly that swimming wasnt really my thingI preferred sports where the whole team was out there working together instead of each player working alone. Softball was too slow for me. I had too much energy to stand around waiting for the ball to come my wayI wanted to chase it! I liked basketball, but since neither of my parents was especially tall, I knew I probably wasnt going to have much luck in that department. So while none of these sports was an immediate hit, I was still learning a lot about what I liked and what I was good at.

Another nice thing about that time was that my dad was my coach during a lot of those early youth sports. My sister was shyer than I was, and Coach Dad helped her feel more comfortable in the field or on the court. For me, having my dad as my coach made it easy to be myself, and with him there to catch me (remember the monkey bars?), I wasnt afraid to try new things.

THE RIGHT FIT

When I finally started playing soccer, I loved it. It was fast paced and competitive, and I especially admired the teamwork part of it. It didnt hurt that my older sister (whom I followed everywhere) and a bunch of my friends played soccer too. I played my first full season with a recreational league when I was eight, and when the season ended, I couldnt wait for more.

When I found out that there was a nine-month gap between seasons, I knew I didnt want to wait that long. Id tried enough other sports to know in my heart that I enjoyed soccer the mostand maybe that I was better at it than the rest of the things I had tried. My mom did some research and found a soccer club that had just started a developmental program for kids. It was based on teaching skills rather than on competing, and my mom thought that sounded perfect for my sister and me.

I absolutely loved it! The coaches were all PE teachers, so they were great at instructing and knew how to make all the drills and training really fun. I couldnt wait to get to practice at the end of the school day. On Saturdays, we would break up into teams and play each other, but since the program was all about learning, the competition came second to the skills we were practicing. Our parents were encouraged to cheer when we did a certain trick or used a skill wed been working on instead of just when we scored points, and that really helped me fall in love with the game of soccer, not just with winning.

MOTIVATED AND INSPIRED

I dont remember being an especially great player at the beginningI mean, how many people are just great at something right away? Not very many. When I watch old home movies of my early playing, I definitely dont think I was especially talented or any better than the average nine-year-old, but I was motivated and adventurous. My parents never pushed me or my sister more toward one sport than another, but when I decided I wanted to play soccer year-round, they helped me find a place to learn and grow. Theres a lot more to tell about my youth soccer journey and all the steps I took to get to the Womens National Soccer Team, but that club is where my dream of becoming a professional soccer player first sparked to life.

Its crazy to think about how much access girls today have to womens pro soccer. You can watch their games online, on TV, or in person if you live in a city with a National Womens Soccer League (NWSL) team, but when I was growing up (not that long ago), it was really hard to see womens soccer games. They werent broadcast on TV, and you couldnt stream them on your phone. If I wanted to watch a womens game, I had to go in person, and the only womens team nearby was the Arizona State University (ASU) college team, so thats who I grew up watching.