Scott Lucky is a guest blogger in my college soccer guest blogging series that will be happening this fall.  The series is a way for my Online Soccer Academy players and readers to see what it’s like to be a college soccer player and share in some of these players’ experiences.

Scott is a special guest member in my Online Soccer Academy and is a Senior and Captain at Tusculum College; an NCAA Division 2 College in Greenville, Tennessee.  Below he talks about how his preseason was, his goals for the season, and why it hurts so bad to feel so good about your game.  His post is heart felt, intense, and inspiring!  You can follow his season in real time on Twitter.  He blogs regularly on his own blog, Scott Lucky’s Random Stream of Consciousness.

Preseason.  This word brings fear to many college soccer players across the nation, but I am weird in that I love it.  I know that the temporary pain is worth it if that is what it is going to take to reach my goals.  Some teams practice twice a day, some three times, and some unfortunate ones four times.  Our coach opts for the classic three-a-day schedule of 7:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., and 7:00 p.m.  Our first session comes way too early in the morning, especially after a few days of working your tail off.  The 7:00 a.m. session has an emphasis on fitness and technical work.  Practices are usually kept to about an hour and a half, but are crammed with a lot of high intensity work.  After practice, we walk to the cafeteria and cram down a breakfast.  Many people have eaten cafeteria food and can appreciate my description of how we take our breakfasts.  After our first session and breakfast, many of us retire to our rooms to lay down before we come back to the locker room to get changed at 10:30.

11:00 a.m. was the start time of our next session.  The middle of the day session was always the toughest for me personally.  Having such a small gap of rest between the morning and second session was rough, but I made it through.  Our second session included a lot of small-sided games.  As much of the team showed up in pretty good shape, our coach decided to get most of our fitness in by playing, which many of us appreciated.  I am a huge fan of fitness, but there is nothing that compares to the specificity that you get when you play against others in high intensity sessions.  We rushed off to lunch and a nice long nap during the break after our session.

As one of the captains, and a senior, I am hoping that our team will have an outstanding year.  Tusculum was fortunate enough to get to the Elite 8 last year and we were ranked as high as #3 in the nation.  Many of us remember the heartbreak that occurred when we lost to Tampa in overtime, and I personally have worked diligently to come into the season as prepared as I could.   I was fortunate enough to play for a PDL team in the summer with four of my Tusculum teammates with the Mississippi Brilla.  This was a great opportunity to stay in shape and play against quality competition.  We were able to train everyday during the week and the guys that played in the summer were definitely at a different starting point as far as fitness and comfort on the ball are concerned than those that didn’t play over the summer.  I also was working like a mad-man because I knew that this was my last season in the PDL before my senior season and trying out with professional teams in the spring.  I was training once with the team at night and usually training on my own in the morning and afternoon as well.  I had a couple bouts with overtraining, but I personally would rather over train a bit rather than knowing I could have done more.  I tapered about a week before preseason so I would come into camp fit and injury-free.

Our last session of the day happened at 7:00 p.m.  Many of the guys picked up some little injuries and knocks and bruises during preseason so many of them lived in the training room.  They were there before and after every session.  I was fortunate to get through preseason relatively injury free and I credit this to all of my work on fitness in the off-season.  I understand that sometimes, you can’t avoid injuries.  Soccer is a contact sport and is very unpredictable, so these things happen sometimes.  I can say that many injuries occur during the second half due to fatigue.  The better shape that you can get yourself into as a player, the lower the risk of injury.  If a player knows that he can keep himself out of injury by putting in a lot of hard work… why wouldn’t he spend the time and effort to make himself a better and more complete player?  A player that is injured can’t play in games and it is hard to help your team when you aren’t playing due to injury.

I tend to work very hard on my game and my fitness and want to be able to look back at my career and know that I have given everything that I could to use the talents that God has blessed me with.  I am not the most talented guy, but I am still playing today when others have quit or retired because I outwork people.  I take pride in the fact that I outwork others and I think that the work really can give a player confidence when they are playing in a game and it gets tough.  I heard a quote that said, “If it isn’t hurting like heck, you aren’t doing it right.”  To me, this quote means that it is a given that in a game, you will be hurting.  It is not easy, especially as a center midfielder, to get up and down the field for 90-120 minutes.  It is going to hurt, but you are not alone in experiencing the pain.  Your opponent is hurting just as bad, if not worse.  Your preparation will get you to there, but your mentality will take you over the edge.  I can’t count how many times I have been able to influence a game just by making one more run than my opponent was willing, or able, to do.  The temporary pain experienced during training or a game is totally worth it.  It feels great to get a game-winning goal or make a game saving tackle.  I try to remember that when I am on my early morning runs or lifting till I can’t feel my arms.  Success isn’t for everyone and is very difficult to achieve, but if it was easy, why would people do it?  Thinking about my goals and where I want to take my game gives me the fuel to feed my passion during training sessions and time I spend by myself pursuing excellence.

Scott Lucky #18

Tags: College Soccer, Mississippi Brilla, Scott Lucky, Tusculum College

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 8:32 am and is filed under College Soccer Guest Bloggers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.