I was a good—but far from great—soccer player in high school. Two guys on my team played on our state select team and got full rides to colleges and I definitely wasn’t one of them.
But I was the only guy on the team who also played in an adult men’s league with a team full of guys from England. They were all in their forties and most were well past their playing prime. We never practiced and the team played like it, but we all had fun. And after games, they’d bring me with them to the local English pub owned by one of the players. He was nice enough to let me into the bar, but responsible enough to make sure I drank Coke while they all enjoyed their (many) pints of Newcastle.
It made for a great college essay. How many other soccer players applying do you think told the same story?
If you can’t be better at something than everyone else, maybe you could just do something that lets you say, “I’m the only kid at my school who…”