Go!
I was never the fast guy. I wasn’t the slow guy either; I just possessed very average speed for an athlete. It wasn’t so noticeable when I played soccer, in fact. I possessed good speed for a soccer player. Since I was a center-forward, in 1967 that meant goal scorer.
Period.
Forget dropping back to help defend, which was my natural instinct.
No.
I was to prowl right around their last defender and, be ready to sprint the forty yards to goal and put the ball in the net.
We had a great goalie and two really stout fullbacks, so when they would make a stop, we would go for it.
I was on the very first American soccer team to play in an English Youth Football League. The British were none too happy about them allowing us in, and it was reflected in their sports writings about us.
After we beat a storied old club from Oxford, the local paper said: The Oxford Blues lost a match to the upstart team from RAF Upper Heyford on Sunday. The match was much closer than the final tally might indicate. Nevertheless, it was hard cheese for the home side as the visitors, badly bruised and beaten, limped away with an 8-2 victory.
It didn’t matter how many we scored, whether we shut them out or not, we couldn’t get any love from the British press. It wasn’t until we had run the table in the first two months of the season and ran our record to 9-0 when we started to get noticed.
Long story short, we were transferred back stateside to Barksdale AFB, Louisiana before the season concluded.
In football, I wasn’t the flashy breakaway runner, I was the blocking back.
On defense, I was quick enough to play safety, but would end up as a linebacker after I put on a few pounds in my sophomore year of high school.
A blown out shoulder and severed Achilles tendon pretty much ended my athletic career.
I had the fastest kid in our entire Pop Warner league on the team I was coaching in Arizona. If he got anywhere near the outside edge of the defense, my little halfback would take it to the house every time. No defender in the league could match up with him in the open field.
The problem was, we had very little else on this team.
My quarterback was being made to play football by his asshole Dad and he was the most motivated kid on the team.
I found it to be one of my most frustrating seasons because we lost our first three games and I had reached my limit.
But I knew these kids had more in them than they were showing and I just needed to find out the right button to push.
At our next practice I offered each one of them the chance to dial it in and tank the rest of the season because they were afraid they just weren’t good enough to beat the privileged little boys from Scottsdale who is the team we would play if we won the next seven straight games to finish the season 7-3 and qualify for the state playoffs.
A funny thing happened.
My boys got pissed.
I found the button.
We would go on to be eliminated in the second round of the state playoffs, but we beat Scottsdale 20-7 in the first round of state and even though I had to pretend to bend down to tie my shoes so I could get low enough for my boys to lift the Gatorade barrel to pour over me, I never felt better and I still carry a smile from that magical season.
Stay well.
