Ask Me Anything! With Sam Cary #4

Every Monday on our Instagram story, we ask our Socceristas to submit questions to our content creator Sam Cary. Sam is a senior at the University of Iowa, where she is on the women’s soccer team. She is a Big Ten Champion, the team captain, and a 4x Academic All-Big Ten Honoree. Here are her responses to three of the questions you submitted. So check out the Instagram story every Thursday to submit your questions to next week’s Ask Me Anything!

Q: Who did you grow up playing for?

A: I played for a local league during my first few years playing soccer. I loved this because it allowed me to fall in love with the game in a low-pressure environment. Then, I started playing club/travel soccer in second grade, which was great to start taking my game to the next level. 

Around 7th grade, I decided I wanted to keep progressing, so I switched from my small club to St. Louis Scott Gallagher. This was the ECNL team in my area, and playing here transformed my game. This allowed me to get exposure to colleges and eventually led to my committing to play at Iowa. 

I am very grateful for my path through my soccer career, but I want people to know this is not the only path. Every player has a different path and journey, so trust your own process. 

Q: How do you get better at juggling?

A: Practice, practice, practice. I am very competitive, so I turn everything into a personal challenge or competition. I vividly remember learning to juggle in my driveway and slowly improving my number. A lot of juggling comes down to focus and technique, so dedicating quality time to juggling is the best way to get better at the craft. 

I used to practice juggling every day before school. My mom would sit there and count for me, and I would play my favorite songs and juggle to the beat of the music. Doing this with my family made something that can get mundane a fun way to start my day. (Also, if I were getting a new record, my mom would let me be late to school to see it out, which was awesome). 

I think one of the most important things is continuing to challenge yourself. So if you are really good with two-feet juggling, can you do one foot only? Can you juggle with your head? Can you create fun patterns? Finding a new challenge helped me to keep motivated and find fun in juggling. 

Q: Did you play other sports growing up?

A: I did! Soccer was not originally my sport of choice, and I did a lot of different activities, from basketball to volleyball, swimming to dance, and track to cheerleading. I think this variety was great for me when I was younger to learn different skills and figure out what I liked.

Around middle school, my two main focuses were soccer and track. I really loved playing both a team sport and an individual sport because I learned very different lessons from them. Soccer was great for working as a team and growing as a teammate and part of the large picture. And, track was the opposite. I learned a lot about accountability and discipline through track because it was just me out there. 

I loved having these different lessons in my life, and I think both of them have made me a better soccer player and person, so I always recommend adding some diversity to your sporting life.

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