Before I arrived at Tsinghua University, I had always wanted to participate in a school sport. I missed the competitiveness and team bonding that I had experienced in high school and sorely missed while attending UTD. Never would I have imagined that the sport would have been football though. It happened by complete accident as I joined a business club and got recommended to the football team by a player from last year’s team. The first practice I had no idea what to expect, as I had no idea that Chinese people knew what football was and had no idea who would show up for tryouts. The medley of students that showed up was quite surprising, as it became obvious pretty quickly that most of them had never played before. There were a couple of other foreigners, but for the most part the team was composed of Chinese players. They proved to be very quick learners, as well as an extremely enjoyable group to be around. Most of the players had not known each other before, but we soon formed many friendships as well as a rather formidable football team. I began to look forward to practice every Tuesday and we generally would play for much longer than our 2 hour practice required. They quickly became my family in China, as I would frequently spend my free time with them, whether that be going skiing, going to karaoke, or eating Thanksgiving dinner. As good as our relationships were off the field, they may have been even better on the field as we went on to have an undefeated season as we captured the Beijing citywide flag football competition. In a country full of familiar food, familiar language, it was football that ended up making me feel right at home.
