When I was nine years old, I started to play soccer. I would practice every day. I would sometimes play by myself, or I would play a game with my cousins and friends. I would also go to the park every day with my dad to go play soccer with my cousin. While my dad was playing soccer with the other group, we would start a game ourselves. First we would let the two best players pick teams. When we were finished picking the team we set up the goals and out of bound lines. After that we would start a game.
When we started playing some days my team would win and some days we would lose. Sometimes when my team was losing, I’d starts cheating and not playing by the rules. I would be a poor sport and just quit. Most of the other kids would get mad and quit too. When I got home, my dad would tell me to play fair and play by the rules. He would also tell me that if I kept playing that way, most of the other kids would not want to play with me. My dad told me that I can not win every time. He would tell me that the only way to get better at soccer is to keep trying and not quit.

After a while, I started to understand what my dad was trying to tell me. Then I started to have good sportsmanship and play fair. We would go to the park, and I would start to play soccer again. After a couple of years, I start to play other sports. One other sport I started playing was football.
This was an important experience, because if I hadn’t learned soccer, I would never be a good sportsman. If I had never experienced this, I would never have gotten anywhere in life. Playing soccer has taught me a very important lesson that I will never forget.