A series of cheers emanate from the crowd as Sharad Chandra (12) travels deftly down the soccer field, each coordinated pass a wordless conversation.

“Normally, when you play soccer, you just get to play with your ‘teammates,’ but those teammates are my friends now,” Sharad said. “You see each other every day, and it just makes your bond with them so much stronger. I think that’s the really appealing thing about playing soccer here.”

With his calm, charismatic nature and plethora of friends, Sharad might superficially seem like a carefree spirit with no real sense of duty. However, once under his facade of poise, his friends say he’s a completely different person.

“He acts like he’s chill, but he cares a lot about everything,” his close friend and soccer teammate Sparsh Chauhan (12) said. “He’s kind of an artist, and I don’t mean just art. He’s an artist in so many ways. Just by watching him work on a project which might not even be art, you can tell he’s very stable and committed. When he does something, he always does it for real, instead of just going through the motions.”

That dedication comes through in his volunteering. While the 400 hours Sharad’s clocked in at organizations like the Red Cross, El Camino Hospital, the Red Cross and the Alzheimer’s Institute might be impressive on paper, Sharad finds more meaning in the individual human connections.

“I think to understand yourself you need to understand others as well,” he said. “All the people that I have interacted with whether through volunteering or not have really shaped me and my view of myself. I think that empathizing with other people is a huge part of understanding who you are and being who you want to be. Whether it be talking to say patients in a hospital or just people at school, you don’t really understand and know yourself until you understand other people.”

And unlike what others may expect, Sharad hasn’t always effortlessly woven through obstacles in his life — perhaps because some obstacles prove trickier than defenders on the field.

“My sophomore year, I tore a ligament in my leg while playing soccer,” he said. “I think from then on, I’ve been scared to make tackles. Now, before a game, I tell myself to not be scared, and I think that confidence is the biggest thing to achieve anything in life. Without confidence, there’s no way you can’t be successful. I think on the field, I live by ‘you miss all the shots you don’t take,’ because it’s like if I don’t try and put myself in a position to try to do something new, I can’t succeed.”

Sharad’s friend Shaya Zarkesh appreciates his humility, particularly in academics.

“Sharad’s very hardworking yet humble. He’s acing all his classes, but he doesn’t really talk about it. At the same time, he’s a very fun person to hang out with,” his friend Shaya Zarkesh (12) said. “I get really happy when I see him. I don’t really know why. We talk about a lot of things, we play a lot of soccer together, and he’s next to me on the field, so we work together a lot, and he always covers for me. We have that kind of soccer chemistry.”

That “chemistry” with others drives most of Sharad’s actions, as he sees himself as a minor part of a larger collective.

“I know for sports, when you go to watch a game, that’s when everybody comes together for a common cause,” he said. “Everything else goes away when you’re on that field. You are just focused on that 90 minutes, hour and a half. I think that’s something really powerful. When everybody is united, all your worries go away, and I think that’s pretty important. I think being able to bring people together for one thing whether that’s for a sporting event or just to talk and do things together, I think that’s the most important part of anything I do. When I’m with other people, it feels like all our problems go away.”