Week 13 Story - Z and his Students

Soccer ball

There once was a man by the nickname of "Z" from the country of Jordan. As a child, his life revolved around the game of soccer. Every day after school he would go to the park with his friends where they would practice for hours on end.

He joined a club and excelled at the game. As he got older his games got more and more serious and he believed he could make a career out of his passion playing soccer professionally. His dreams were coming to reality when he was offered a scholarship to play for a small university in the small state of Oklahoma. This was exactly what he had been waiting for. An opportunity to get out and prove to the world that he had what it takes to be one of the greats.

Unfortunately, one day during a tense game, Z suffered a grave injury. It resulted in a broken leg and shattered dreams. It took too long to heal and when it finally did, he just wasn't the same. Z knew that his chances were gone and he stopped playing soccer. He finished his degree and went out into the real world to pursue a new career.

He became a high school teacher at Western Heights High School and taught US government to highschool seniors. The school had soccer teams and Z couldn't stay away from soccer. He became the girl's soccer coach and then later the boy's soccer coach. In that position, he was able to reignite his passion for the sport and share the knowledge he had with his students. Students that, like he once did, dreamed of going on to play for the big leagues.

The school had been dealing with financial problems for a while now. In an effort to cut cost they began to cut extracurricular activities and soccer was one of them. Z would not take this sitting down. He could not just sit there as the school stole the dreams of his students. He went to the superintendent's office to see if he could save the soccer program. He begged the superintendent to change his decision saying that he would do anything. The superintendent wanted to see just how far Z would go and said that in order for the soccer program to stay, he would have to fundraise for uniforms and equipment and drive the bus to games himself. Z said he would be happy to do that so long as his students could keep playing soccer.

And so his students kept playing soccer and Z was happy because, after all that had happened, he was able to make a career out of this thing he loved most, soccer.

Authors Note:

This story is based loosely off of the story of the Celtic fairy tale "King O'Toole and his Goose." What I got from this story was that there was a man who had a love for hunting but one day couldn't hunt anymore so he got really sad. He stopped being sad when he found a goose that he would chase and play with. Eventually, the goose got really old and could no longer play with him. This saddened O'Toole to see his friend like that. Then one day St, Kavin, I think it was Kavin I'm not sure, came across O'Toole and asked him what was wrong. O'Toole told him that his friend was old and could no longer play with him and he was sad. St. Kavin offered to heal the goose and O'Toole said he would pay any price. What happened was that O'Toole gave all the land he had left to St. Kavin to heal his goose. This brought O'Toole his happiness again. I thought this was a very wholesome story and I really liked it. I thought it was very noble of king O'Toole to use his wealth to heal his friend rather than himself. I wanted to keep this going in my story so I used the same plot but I made the story about my high school soccer coach Zenati Al-Zenati. He was a really mean guy like super fucking mean lol but he was a very good person. He taught us way more than just soccer he always had stories to tell us about how to be a man. Stuff dealing usually with integrity and honesty. While he was very mean I know that man loved us dearly and would do just about anything for us. What happened to Z, we called him Z, was true. He was born and raised in Jordan and got a scholarship to play soccer for Southern Nazarene University. Unfortunately, life happened and he wasn't able to go further his soccer career past that. He's been a soccer coach at my high school for as long as I can remember and he's a damn good one. The part of the school having financial problems is made up and it supposed to be equivalent to King O'Toole's goose getting old and dying. Although Z is a mean guy I still think he'd do anything to help us out. I love and miss him.