For Sarah Bonney, the dream of becoming a soccer player began when she was just a little girl and her mom gave her a doll. Bonney would see the doll, but instead of playing with it, she would cry because she realized that her four brothers had something even better, something that captivated her attention even more than her doll.
“I remember when I was, like, 7 or 8 my mom used to go to the capital [Accra],” she said. “She was a business woman, so she would buy a lot of stuff for a shop. So, when she would go, she would buy us stuff.
“She would buy me a doll, and she bought my little brothers soccer balls and game consoles. But I would always cry and tell my mom, ‘I don’t want the doll.’ Fortunately, one of my little brothers didn’t want the soccer ball or games, so we would switch.”
But Bonney’s love for soccer did not stop when she had the soccer ball in her hands. That was just the beginning of it all.
“Growing up, every time I came home from school, I would follow my brothers, I was the only girl,” she said. “I would follow them out to the field to play every day. So, I think that’s how I developed my love for it.”
Since that moment, Bonney’s soccer-playing days began. She continued to play soccer throughout the years. In 2013, it was time for her to graduate high school and think about the next step in her life. Most high school athletes dream of playing at the collegiate level, but Bonney had other plans.
“I didn’t want to go to college,” she said. “I didn’t want to do anything. I just wanted to play soccer.”
After high school, Bonney dedicated two years to soccer camps with hopes to one day play on the Ghana National Team.
“Right after graduation, I just wanted to train so hard and make the national team,” Bonney said. “I graduated in 2013, and then in 2015, I was still at the camp playing soccer with no intention of going to school. My mom was mad at me because she thought that I was smart. She said, ‘Maybe you should do something else with your life. Soccer is taking forever,’ but it had only been two years. People have waited five years to go into the national team, so I wasn’t discouraged at all.”
For those two years, Bonney practiced long and hard hours, but things were not always easy for her. The sport that she loved was giving her a hard time. Her biggest hardship was when she had the ball at her feet. She was scared of being hit by other players. During her tenure at the soccer camp, Bonney practiced one thing over and over again, how to gain confidence.
“I dedicated two years of my life to become confident,” she said. Bonney asked one of the girls at the camp in Ghana for her help, but the help she received came with conditions.
“Let’s say practice would start at 3 p.m., I would beg them to take me at 2 [p.m.], but then I had to give something back,” she said. “So, I would wash their cleats and everything. I would wash their practice gear after practice so that they would teach me.”
It took Bonney two years to find the confidence that she was looking for. She realized that her confidence was finally where she wanted it to be when she played a life-changing game.
“There was a game against one of the biggest teams in Ghana,” Bonney said. “They called them Hasaacas Ladies. They were really good. We beat them 3-1 and I scored two.”
From that moment on, her life would change. Bonney went from being second string on the team to playing as a starter. Eventually, everything would fall into place for her. In 2015, her lifelong dream of being called to the Ghana National Team came true, but life had other plans for her.
When Bonney got called to the national team, she met a group of people who scouted players that wanted to play at the collegiate level, but she wasn’t on the list of scouts because she had missed the first day.
Bonney did not keep her arms crossed. She went directly to the scouts and told them that she was interested, but she was told that first they needed to see how she played.
She returned the following day to show the scouts how she played. The scouts had invited coaches from different areas to come and scout for players. On the list of coaches was Head Coach of the UTRGV Women’s Soccer Team Glad Bugariu. When Bonney showed up, Bugariu already had his team set from the players that he saw on the first day, which Bonney had missed, so the only option was to have her play against his team.
In no time, Bonney was switched from the opposing team to coach Bugariu’s team and was asked to play for UTRGV.
“After they scouted me, I told my mom, ‘I know I wanted to be on the national team, I’m already in there,’” Bonney said. “Although I didn’t get to travel with them [the national team], because it was the national team or here, so I chose here [UTRGV].”
Since Bonney arrived at UTRGV, her work ethic on and off the field has always been her priority. Her hard work and dedication were shown in the classroom during Spring 2019. Bonney was not only balancing practice, traveling and games, but she was also balancing a job and the life of a full-time student taking 21 hours.
As an accounting major, Bonney had seven rigorous classes that required studying and time management.
“I try to use the little time that I have to study,” she said. “There’s a trick that I have. Before I go to class, I try to be a little bit ahead of the professor. I try to read, so when I go, I am just there to get the things that I didn’t understand on my own and get a better understanding of the things I already understood by myself.”
Even after games, you will find Bonney studying a little bit more to get a better understanding of her courses. You will never see her learning for an exam on the same day and she likes to get ahead on her assignments. Because of her hard work and long study hours, Bonney earned a 4.0 GPA during the spring.
Bonney’s hard work does not stop there. On top of everything she also has a job. Bonney is employed at the Department of Human Development and School Services at UTRGV, where she works with the accounting team.
This semester, Bonney is balancing practice, games, traveling, 18 hours of school and a job.
“Practice is from 8:30 am. to 10:30 a.m. and then I go to work 11 to 2 and then I have class,” she said.
But Bonney’s main goals are to break records and help the team obtain a championship.
“I want to see what’s after the championship,” she said. “I want to be in it. I want to take the team there and see. That’s all I want to do. Break records. Set new records. Win the championship and see what’s beyond the championship. That’s all I want to see.”
