Keagan Pace~2

The speaker talks about overcoming a major challenge during their junior year of high school when they tore their right meniscus while playing soccer. They decided to continue playing through the pain to help their team win the state championships. After the championships, they underwent knee surgery and had to go through three months of rehab. Despite the challenges, they were recruited to play soccer at DePaul University. They committed to joining the program and went on to win their third state championship in a row during their senior year. They are grateful for the opportunity to play Division I soccer and hope to become a professional player one day. One of my biggest challenges I've overcome would be my junior year of high school, I tore my right meniscus playing high school soccer, and I didn't find out about it until the quarterfinals of the state championship tournament. And I found out about it and the doctor said, you know what, you can't make it any worse. So I was like, I'm just going to play through the pain, it's my junior year, I have one more year to win and we could potentially win back-to-back state championships, which hasn't been done in our school's history before and we had an unbelievable team going into it and I just had to do it. I was playing through the pain but I did it for my teammates, I did it for all the seniors and I really made it worth my while, but the challenges did not stop there. After I got my knee worked on a week after the state championship, I had to go through a forceful three months of knee rehab going into it through the summer, and don't get me wrong, it was a hassle, but it's what got me here today and it overcame one of my biggest challenges and I ended up getting recruited that summer to come play here at DePaul. Right after my knee surgery actually, coach came and watched me play and he said, you know what Keegan, that's unbelievable that you can do that three months after knee surgery and I think you can come do that over here and I was like, you know what, I may as well do that and I can display my talents with 50% of my knee and I think I can do it whenever I'm 100% healthy. Later into my senior year, I announced that I was verbally committing here and I told coach I was happy to join the program and excited to come in in the fall and do what I do and do what I love and I really got to take on my journey of becoming a professional soccer player and it's just another step in the path and that senior year we actually went on to win our third state championship in a row and we had nine guys go off to commit to Division I schools and it was a great year. We all got to experience three state championships together and I really overcame my knee surgery and really bounced back from that and never let it get to me that I wasn't playing the sport I love for three months just on crutches not being able to do it and I really overcame that and persevered and I'm here now playing Division I soccer and it's a sport I love and it's what I've known since I've been young and I've really got to face all aspects of the sport and really become the person I am today and playing the sport I love and just doing it all for my family and friends back home and hopefully making a statement and becoming a professional soccer player one day.