Are There Any Sports I'm Good At? My Soccer Story, Part I

I grew up in a small town in central New Jersey (USA) and tried a number of different sports. Baseball games were always waaaaayyyy too long and I have to admit I wasn't good at fielding, pitching, or hitting. My mom likes to tell people that when I played, I was typically standing out in left field swatting gnats or watching the planes fly overhead rather than engaged in the game. It was no surprise to my family when I announced that I didn't want to keep playing baseball.

The next sport to try was basketball. Unfortunately, this was even worse than baseball for me. The rules seemed bizarre and arcane. The "key" certainly didn't look like any key that I had ever seen, and why couldn't I stand there for more than 5 seconds? A "pick and roll" was something nerdy kids did with the snot in their noses; not something you coordinated with teammates to execute a drive to the net. I could never understand why I always was called for traveling. Worst of all, the games were played at night in the middle of winter. Walking out in the dark and the cold with a uniform still soaked with sweat was NOT my idea of fun.

By this time I was a in the fourth grade and all of my friends who grew up watching NFL Football on Sundays with their dads were all joining Pop Warner football. My older brother was a star of the high school football team and I had played my share of "two hand touch" with my friends in my neighborhood and on the playground at school. I figured Pop Warner would be fun. Instead it was like reliving "Nightmare on Elm Street" three times a week for an entire season!

The first practices started in the dog days of summer where the heat and humidity of New Jersey had to be on par with a swamp in Louisiana! And it only got worse from there. All the players, who ranged in age from 10 or 11 years old up through 15 or 16 years old all arrived at the practice fields about 20 minutes before any coaches showed up. It was like "Lord of the Flies"! The older kids would play a game they called "Dog Pile On The Rabbit", which involved throwing one of the young kids to the ground and then the older kids would pile on him to see how high the pile could go. I wasn't always the rabbit, but the few unlikely times I was at the bottom of the pile, I can honestly say I passed out from lack of oxygen at least half the time.

Why not quit? My family didn't raise quitters. My mom and dad told me that I could join any sport I wanted, but once I joined I had to complete the season. I was free to never play that sport again, but quitting mid-season was not allowed. At the time I thought it was a silly and life-threatening rule. But in hindsight, I am thankful for the lessons in commitment and perseverance.