2026 – Julie Huddleston – American Fork High School HS

Worthy Of the World

Hello, My name is Julie Huddleston. If you know me in real life, you know that I love to play sports, and in particular you know that I love to play soccer. I have played soccer for a majority of my life. My very first soccer team was coached by my older sister and named, “The flower killing cherry crushers”. We won every game, and were an astounding success in the rec league of Pleasant Grove. This early success in soccer spurred me on to trying out for my very first club team a few years later at the age of 8. I tried out for the club soccer team Utah Celtic, a well known organization in the Utah soccer world. Not knowing what to expect, I tried out with no expectations, and ending up making the B-team. I played on the B team for a year until the A team recognized my talent, and pulled me up to play with them. I have been on that team ever since.

As the years progressed my soccer team got more and more competitive. We started out playing with provisional teams around Utah, and occasionally played in tournaments in Mesquite and Las Vegas. I always started, and played a majority of the games. Throughout the next few years we had a coach change, and started to play soccer completely different. Our new coach introduced a more mature way to play soccer that none of us 10 year old girls knew how to play. She taught us to play with the keeper.

At the commencement of this journey, our team sucked; I distinctly remember a game where we lost 9-0. Considering that result, it is safe to say we were miserable. However, I decided to “trust the process” as my coach would always say, and stick with my team. As we sought to learn this new form of soccer, many girls left, were cut, or gave up with our way of playing. Eventually, there were only 3 girls on the team who had started out with this new coach. Naturally, I was one of them. We still weren’t the best soccer team, and lost a good amount of games, but we were starting to play really good soccer.

As we continued to play good soccer, our name started getting thrown around, people knew us for good soccer. Instead of merely kicking the ball and running we were learning to “move the ball, to move players, to break lines, to score” (a well known aphorism on my team), a skill that set us apart from other teams, and also individually set us apart from other athletes because we had problem solving skills many other girls didn’t have.

This 5-6 year bought of losing games and merely, “trusting the process” was extremely difficult. I found myself wondering  if we would ever win any games, or if staying on this team was worth it. Eventually, it did, but it came with even more hardship. Another team in Utah was facing some problems that made it impossible for them to stay together, and their team disbanded. There are many reasons why half of their team came to be on my team, but one of them was because of my team’s way of playing good soccer. That year we cut around 5 people, which was very difficult for me, they were all some of my closest friends. We also gained around 6 people, each of which were very good athletes and highly skilled at soccer. I entered into the season wary because all of my best friends were no longer on the team, and my starting spot would be contested. But, I was also excited to get to play with good athletes and to meet new people, I was going to get better and it was going to be awesome!

Sadly, my friends leaving was not the only setback I had. My club also joined the GA that year. The GA is a girls soccer league composed of teams throughout the United States, it was an amazing opportunity, but meant that we would start having games on Sundays, which was something that I decided I would not do. That decision meant I would miss half of the season, every season, until I was finished with soccer. I went into the new season without my friends, new players, and less game time than everyone else. My future with soccer was looking less and less likely. Despite all of these things set against me, I decided to try. And try I did.

That year I was moved around to multiple positions and played a different number of minutes each game. My game time ebbed and flowed but I was still able to make a difference on the field.  One game, which was imperative that we win in order to achieve our teams goals that year, was against a really good team. My self esteem before this game was at an all time low. I had lost my starting spot at the 6 (which was my favorite position at the time) and had been moved to a different position. I also felt like I didn’t have any friends on the team and felt lonely a lot of the time. I wondered if there was any point in trying to be/play on this team anymore. The new girls on my team were just so good, many were already being looked at for colleges, or being called up to the national team, I was just not as good as them. Before the game started my coach came up to me and said, “Julie, we need you at your best today to win”, this surprised me because her daughter had just beaten me out of a starting spot, and it felt like every time I got the ball in our last game I lost it. I wasn’t going to be able to help my team at all, I couldn’t even hold onto the ball, It didn’t even make a difference if I was there or not. I listened to her say this, and decided to believe her. I had been on this team for 5 years now, I understood how to play good soccer, and I was a good athlete. I could make a difference. When the game started I was playing a new position and scared out of my mind. However, I had decided I was going to give this game my all, so I did. We ended up winning that game 3-1, I scored and assisted two of our three goals. By deciding to try I made a difference, and ended up helping my team to win the game.  I played the rest of that season as the 9 and helped my team to get to the top 4 at Playoffs. However, problems still persisted.
I was missing on average 8 games a season, and missing out on crucial game development time. Because I didn’t play on Sunday, college scouts didn’t look at me, therefore I did not get recruited. I was stuck. Everyone else on my team had gotten multiple offers from schools and were set to play soccer for a long time. I felt like I was floundering. Feelings of not being good enough came flooding back into my mind. I found myself listening to lies that I was not good at soccer, my teammates didn’t like me, and because I didn’t play on Sunday, no one wanted me on their team. Following this turn of events, my soccer playing abilities floundered, and so did my mental health. Life was really hard. Playing soccer in college had always been my dream and because I didn’t play on Sundays, it wasn’t going to happen. I was irritable at school because soccer was my life up to that point, and now a future in it wasn’t a possibility, so who was I? It felt like I wasn’t going to be good at anything, so there was no point in trying.

Following the end of my highschool season, I found myself dreading going back to my club team. So much so, I decided to tell my coach I couldn’t do it anymore. My mental health was struggling, and I just wasn’t happy anymore. She was very surprised by my proclamation and asked me to give it two weeks before I decided to stop playing. I told her I would, but still didn’t have any fun. Even though I was still miserable, I told myself I couldn’t give up just yet, I had made it too far to stop playing now. I was very sad for a long time, until I had a conversation with my Mom.

She told me that I am worth loving no matter how good I was at soccer, or school, or with my friends. I needed to start loving myself for who I am because I am worthy of love. This conversation changed my life. The very next day I took what she said into account, I went around school thinking and feeling like I was worthy of love. I took chances that I never would have taken otherwise, and over time I started to feel happy again. I found joy in everyday life, which felt impossible before. I actually enjoyed going to soccer practice, and even started to get better. I strengthened relationships, and let toxic ones go. I was happy again! All because I listened to my Mom’s advice to love myself, because I was worthy of it.

I guess the point I am trying to make through this long story about my life, is that we are worthy of being loved, and therefore worthy of every opportunity. For a long time I felt like I wasn’t worth people’s love or help because being bad at soccer was my own fault, no one else had control over that but me.  It was the same with relationships. I was the sole cause of my problems, so I had to be the one to dig myself out of them. However, through my experience with soccer I learned that that isn’t the case. We are worthy enough not to be given up on. So don’t give up on yourself, I almost did, and my life wouldn’t have been the same.  Because I followed my Mom’s advice, I committed to play soccer in college, I was my Highschool team’s Captain, and am happier than I have been in a while. Whatever you are going through is hard, and it’s okay to admit that, but you are worth so much more than giving up. Go live your dreams because you are worthy to achieve them!