Athletics and Joel: An Autobiography

Athletics has always been a great joy for Joel. He has always enjoyed running and competing with others. From the field to the rink, Joel plays sports of all types. Although Joel has not played on a large amount of organized teams, he does like to get together with friends and have a scrimmage from time to time. The organized teams Joel has played on have been, soccer teams from when he was in grades one and two, along with a hockey team in grade 3. As Joel grew older he started into many different kinds of sports through his Jr. high in Kola MB. Joel played on the volleyball, basketball, soccer, and badminton teams, along with running track, playing recess sports and becoming enrolled in life guard training. In most of the sports through Jr. high there was not a large growing period. Joel and his team would practice a certain sport for a month, play some games against other schools, and then move on to the next sport. Joel would not say those were organized teams that competed for anything extremely special other than school pride.
As Joel moved up from Jr. high to high school, he took on football, which he enjoyed a great deal. Joel seemed to excel at this sport from the beginning, getting placed on defense for his quick feet and tackling abilities. Joel was not the toughest, or the biggest guy on the field, but he gave his full effort to the game and had many good times. Joel's team, the Virden Golden Bears, never became number one while he played, but they were never last either. One of the most memorable times in Joel's football career was being able to play in the Blue Bomber's Canad Inns stadium. It was cold and rainy that day, with a team that had them beat in skill, but they had a fun game anyway. After Joel's grade 12 year he could not play football with the Golden Bears anymore, but he would not stop playing the game for fun. Spending half the year not playing sports, Joel became restless and decided to join the spring high school soccer team. Honing his soccer skills, Joel grew in his abilities, although it was not enough to win more than one game with his team mates. Joel's high school soccer career ended, but his sports legacy lives on.