Sports play a significant role in my life. I experimented with different sports while growing up including swimming, gymnastics, karate, basketball, and running. Then, when I was about eight years old, my parents enrolled me in soccer. I instantly fell in love; there was something about the freeing feeling I felt as I rushed down the field dribbling the ball between my feet.

I played recreational soccer until I was about ten years old. My first recreational team was named after a Premier League team: Manchester United. My starting position was as the goalie; however, after a while, I begged to become a field player. My coach agreed and let me try playing defense. My job was to protect the ball from getting to the goalie. Not only did I succeed in protecting the goalie overall, but I also even managed to dribble the ball up the field and score a few times! After a few years of playing recreational soccer, my coach advised my parents to put me in academy soccer since I needed more of a challenge. I tried it out and made it on a C-level team called the Strikers. However, I was surrounded by players hungry to succeed. This need to succeed motivated me and the team to work hard, and we eventually became the top regional team for our club.

Not long after becoming the premier team, I tore my ACL like many other athletes, which caused me to lose hope to play collegiate soccer; nonetheless, it did also lead me down a different path where I discovered a nonprofit where I could use my passion for soccer to help underprivileged kids in Nepal.