Junior midfielder, Josh Patino gives his weekly thoughts about the team on the blog known as “On the Pitch”.

Jul 16^th, 2010 – Over the past two weeks the majority of my time has been spent on the soccer field. With cub camps, the overnight academy camps, and coaching two youth teams I literally live on the field. I love coaching and having soccer being such a huge part of my life. As I watch players develop over the 4 day camp it’s remarkable how much they improve and become friends with someone they didn’t even know existed four days earlier. On Tuesday night my training team left me driving home in awe…

My training team consisted of 10 players from the U14 Ranger Boys, a player from Utah FC, and a young man who had never played competitively, we’ll call him Bryce. On the first day of camps I could tell that this team would be one of the most skilled teams that I would ever coach at camps. You could tell they all knew each other and they adapted well to each other’s style of play. The level of respect on and off the field impressed me, aside from teammates, they were friends, and as such, they pushed each other to be better all week long. Clearly, Bryce never playing at a competitive level and not playing with the boys he was by far the weakest player of the team. Tuesday night we were having our daily scrimmage and as the game progressed Bryce scored his first goal…what happened after is what left me in awe. Bryce was ecstatic. I looked up to see his reaction and celebration and I saw all 11 players surround him and congratulate him. They all celebrated as if he scored the winning goal in the World Cup Finals. The 11 others were almost more excited for him than he was himself. Here are 11 young men that for the most part play and understand each other and when the unknown 12^th guy scores they embraced him as one of their own. If I were an onlooker I wouldn’t have guessed that Bryce wasn’t part of their team.

This led me to think of the team I play for and represent. I believe it was two games ago that Pedro suffered a knee injury towards the end of the game. His injury didn’t look that bad from the sideline and most of us thought he was just trying to get a call from the ref. When he wasn’t getting up Deniece, our trainer, ran to his aid. She’s great. The next thing I saw was three of his teammates lift him up in their arms and start to carry him off the field. Cam was sitting out due to his ankle injury, and he ran onto the field to relieve the field players and take over carrying Pedro, his teammate. I, then, rushed on the field to help Cam. Pedro covered his face with his hands and you could hear the sobs he was trying to hold back. Here are two examples of teammates lifting each other. Literally.

This is what makes our team unique and special. Watch what happens when the team comes together for a cheer, EVERYONE is involved and in the inner circle. When the starting line-up is called the guys on the bench almost cheer more loudly for the their teammates than the fans in the stands. During the game the guys not playing are always offering encouraging words to their teammates on the field. When a substitution is made almost every single player gives the player coming off a high five, a short man embrace, but most of all he is welcomed to sit with a “Well done.” I’m often asked by younger players or fellow students about how I like playing for BYU, and my response has been the same since the first day I put on the blue and white jersey. It’s a dream come true. I wouldn’t exchange this experience for anything, this experience is one that I could only have here.Tweet