"“Are you sure about having practice tonight?”
“Yep. First game is Saturday, we
could use it.”
“It’s raining.” Trent complained.
“And this is soccer.” Chrissy
reminded him. “So?” “So, they’re kids. Rain is the perfect weather to play soccer in!”
“Eh…” He shook the rain off his cap
and pulled his hood over the top of it.
Now, the
parents were probably miserable, and Bailey’s grandma, they mostly stayed
crouched inside the safety of their vehicles. The field was a mess. Puddles
everywhere, and the places with the grass worn out by shoes pounding it
relentlessly were mud slicks. Naturally that was where the balls were generally
headed. “Control” became the main focus, as everyone was just trying to stay
upright. On the other hand, slide tackles became all of a sudden much more fun
to work on. Chrissy had brought a few extra towels from the house, we had them
get their hands and arms somewhat clean, then Trent and I hauled a large
cardboard box out of Chrissy’s minivan. “Panthers, we’re officially a team
now.”
With that,
Trent opened the box and began to lay the jerseys out. “David,” he announced,
handing him the No. 11 to wear. “Justin,” an extra-long No. 12. Kelsey made a
beeline for the No. 10, snatching it up before anyone else could claim it. “My
lucky number!” Chrissy handed Reese and Abby the smallest jerseys available,
which still looked more like dresses than T-shirts. They became Nos. 3 and 2,
respectively. Ashton tried on her No. 4, Alex was admiring his No. 5. Travis
and Connor took Nos. 6 and 9, which seemed fitting, the same number inverted
for the goalies. Wayne took the No. 16 with a slight smirk. “My name’s Montana,
so…” “Thought you’d pick that one.” I nodded. Bailey took the No. 7, Zoey’s
energy could now be tracked by following the No. 8. The No. 0, No. 1, No. 13, No. 14 and No. 15
were tucked away back in the box for spares.
They were
yellow-gold, “PANTHERS” written out on
the chest in large block type, the league crest in the right corner, with the
sponsor’s name lettered over the back above the numbers.
It
was Saturday, the last weekend in May, sunny and warm, with a slight breeze and
some clouds. The Panthers were set to play the Roadrunners, sponsored by East
Central Electric. They wore sky-blue jerseys with a black typeface and
numbering. “Okay, here’s our starting lineup,” I told the team, gathered about
in a huddle before warmups. “We can have six players out on the field at one
time, not counting the goalie. So we’ll start out with Travis in goal, Bailey
and Zoey as defenders, David as midfielder, with Justin, Wayne and Kelsey as
forwards, got it?” There were several nods. “We’re probably have Ashton come in
when one of the forwards needs a rest, or maybe if David needs a breather.
Alex, too, and Connor will alternate with Trav by quarter. We’ll try to get
everybody in the game at some point.” “What’s ‘alternate’ mean?” Conner
wondered. Wayne rolled his eyes. “It means to switch.” “Okay, thanks.”
Trent took over directing the
shooting line, Chrissy was organizing a water station with Tammy. “Water in the
red jug, Gatorade in the orange.”
“What flavor?”
“Orange, it was on sale.” Tammy answered.
“Okay, cool. Thanks.” I took a cupful.
“You look terrible,” Chrissy whispered.
“I thought you were supposed to outgrow the butterflies?” I
hissed back.
“Didn’t work for my soccer or softball games.”
“Why is it called ‘softball’ when the ball is so much
harder?”
“Good question! I’ve always wondered that myself,” Tammy
jumped into our conversation.
They gathered near the middle of the
field, the ref looked around at the players. “Hey guys, I’m Stephen.” Kelsey,
Wayne and Justin introduced themselves, as did the Roadrunners’ forwards,
Summer, Jon, Mike, and Caleb. They were playing some crazy scheme that looked
like four forwards, two midfielders and no defenders, compared with our 3-1-2
formula.
“Okay, honey, remember, we do not need play-by-play commentary on
here, got it?” Sarah Patrick snapped at her husband Kevin. He rolled his eyes.
“Okayyy…I can still cheer, right?” Sarah raised an eyebrow. “You might
embarrass her.” “She’s almost a teenager.” “She won’t be a teenager for a while
yet, so don’t rush it.”
“Would it be okay to pray?” Connor
asked Trent. “Uhh….sure. What for, though?” “I dunno. Just….that we won’t mess
up, maybe.” “Go ahead, Questions.”
Stephen the ref blew his whistle,
and the scoreboard clock ticked down from 8:00 in the first quarter. The
Roadrunners got the ball first, they passed it among themselves for about ten
seconds, getting their bearings. Then everything kind of exploded. Six light
blue jerseys against six yellow, calories getting burned up as only kids at
play and on a mission can. Shouts of encouragement came from parents and
grandparents in the stands, we were giving instructions, their coach was too.
“Let’s go, guys!” Ashton called
from the sidelines. “Nice pass, David. C’mon now…no…no…that’s right, yes! Give
it to Wayne – All right, all right, that’s okay…after him, Zoey! Sic ‘em,
thattaway…” Alex looked like he wished he wasn’t related to her.
The ball skittered out of bounds,
off a bad pass by Justin intended for Bailey. Out came Wayne and Justin, in
went the Owenses. Still nobody had scored yet, the Roadrunners’ crazed attack
had made the first half of the first quarter more like a hockey game than
soccer; crazy, violent and out-of-control frequently. And the ball rarely
retreated past the center line out of Panther territory, all their energy was
being spent trying to contain or corral their opponents.
“You’re playing too rough, kids! Be
carefuller!” Bailey’s grandma admonished the players, much to the amusement of
those sitting near her.
Paisley Chandler panned her camera
around the stands and sidelines, trying to capture every moment of this
environment.
Zoey was playing fantastic; Bailey,
too. Despite all the onslaught of attacking players, Travis had only had to
stop two shots, both hurried and off-target. There they went again, poking away
at the ball, pestering the life out of the Roadrunners’ Summer, who always wore
a backwards Jeff Gordon ballcap. Bailey kept her practicing for a square dance
long enough for Zoey to slap the ball away, out to Alex, who dribbled enough to
clear an open space for David to shoot through. Alex passed to David, who then
launched a long ball deep into the Roadrunners’ territory. It wasn’t actually
all that deep, but it felt like it, given that the entire game had been played
on our side of the field so far. Kelsey tracked down the runaway ball, well
ahead of most everybody else. She guided it farther along towards the goal,
ditching it off to Ashton at the last second. Ashton trapped the pass, caught
almost as off-guard as the Roadrunner goalie, hopped left sideways to get clear
of her defender, faked a shot right, then let loose an attempt waist-high in
the left corner. Checkmate.
“Yeahhhhh!!!” Kelsey shouted with excitement unbridled, giving her
teammate a double high-five. Justin slapped Ashton on the back. She looked at
the scoreboard. “I just…holy cow. I just
scored a goal!!!” She turned a cartwheel, then hugged the first teammate
she saw, in this case, David. He looked embarrassed, shrugging her off. “Get
back on defense,” he muttered. “Oh. Right, thanks!”
The first quarter ended with that
lone goal, the Panthers’ defense was beginning to wear down. “Okay, let’s
have…Abby, Reese, Questions, Wayne…” Trent bit his lip. “Alex, Ashton, and
Bailey.” There were several surprised looks, myself included. “If you get the
ball, keep control of it, don’t worry about having to score. Let’s just try to
kill some time.” Abby raised her hand. “Yes, Abby?” Chrissy questioned.
“Cwock…dead?” “Um…he just meant to have fun running around.” “Okay!”
“Hey, guys?” Trent pulled Ashton
and Wayne off to the side. “Yeah, Coach?” “Just…don’t exactly go easy on them,
but make sure they get some practice in. Make sure they have fun.”
Wayne looked dubious. “I don’t know
if I can do that.”
“It’s easy, I’ll teach you,” Ashton
said.
“You’re a girl.”
“So?”
“So…you’ve got some, I don’t know,
nurturing instinct in your genes or something.”
She grinned. “Just follow my lead.”
Wayne shrugged and rolled his eyes.
Kelsey took a sip of Gatorade,
getting her breath back. Travis was fidgeting, as was Zoey. Justin bent down to
retie his shoe. David was staring into space, focused on something or other.
None of them were especially thrilled to be watching instead of out there on
the field, in the action.
Wayne’s dad was berating our
tactics to anyone who would listen. “They’ve got those (expletive deleted)
little brats out there, they’re gonna get killed! No way we’ll win…” Murmurs of
dissension at this statement. Tammy was glaring daggers at him “Knock it off,
it’s just a kids game,” Heather muttered. “I thought this stuff quit in
college…” Gary Owens mused. Kevin Patrick grinned in an ironic fashion. “You
must not keep up with sports that much, then.” “Only TV, really. Can’t afford
to go to games, except high school.” “Gotcha…I know a guy who has season
tickets to Chiefs games; so I go about two or three times a year. Maybe you
could join me sometime.” “That might be good.”
What wasn’t so good was the way the
game was going. Sarah had switched into photo mode, seeing Paisley was shooting
video of the action. The lens captured three Roadrunners goals in seventy-three
seconds. Sarah’s shutter captured the images of a discouraged bench, pleading
to be reinserted into the game.
“Do we have timeouts?” Trent asked
me.
“Um….I don’t know. Call one and see
what happens?”
“We do. One timeout per quarter.”
Kelsey answered. Trent frowned at her. “Why
didn’t you tell me that before?”
“Because you never asked….duh. And
why didn’t you study the rulebook before now?” He looked like he wanted to blow
up. “She does have a point.” “Shut. –“ he paused, remembering little ears. “Be
quiet.” to me. “Time-out!!!” to the ref.
Stephen, a sophomore at Eastern
State, obligingly blew the tin whistle. Our Panthers gathered into a huddle.
“Get a drink if you need it, guys,” Chrissy gestured at the cups of Gatorade
waiting by the water cooler. “Okay, let’s have our starting lineup in there,
except Questions still is in goal and Ashton is taking Wayne’s place. Let’s
go.” Things went a little better after that, began to get some good passes
going, moving the ball well. Justin got a shot off but was wide right, and one
of Kelsey’s missiles was just a touch too high, skimming off the top of the
net, while the other the ball was nudged just enough at the last minute that
her foot hit a shin instead. PhweeeTTT… “Free
kick, Blue.”
Our modest success forced the
Roadrunners’ coach, who was in the customer service/marketing department at
East Central, to alter her 4-2-0 scheme into a 3-2-1 setup, which we were able
to penetrate in the third quarter. Intercepting a pass, Zoey charged full speed
ahead upfield, David dropping back to cover her territory. She knocked the ball
sideways over to Wayne, who almost immediately drew a double-team. He flicked
it out to Kelsey, who sent it diagonally back to Zoey, she slowed down to the
pace of a greyhound to receive it cleanly, shifting back up to her comet
setting. This speed burst caught the attention of nearly everyone. Justin was
camped out by the goal, something like in hockey. Seeing an open teammate, the
Energizer Bunny slipped a pass to the Giraffe, and it was almost too easy.
Justin just had to tap the ball into the net.
“Thattaway!!!!!!” Paisley went
nearly berserk. She nearly dropped the camera, she was so excited. “Now don’t
do that ever again.” We said, more or less, exactly the same thing. The
Roadrunners faked Travis out, resulting in an easy goal, and then Connor had
one more ball go past him in the fourth quarter, the game ended in a 5-2 loss.
“You guys played pretty well today,
there were some things we’ll need to work on, but that’s expected, it’s only
our first game. We played some good defense, Bailey and Zoey specially; good
passes, moved the ball well. We’ll have our next practice Tuesday night, and
then back here for our game with the Wild Things.” In other games in our
league, the Wild Things lost to the Lasers 2-1 in a shootout, the Avengers
pounded the Dalmatians 5-0, and the Falcons and Mustangs almost scored two
touchdowns, Mustangs winning 8-5.
I’ll skip ahead to next Saturday,
we were facing the Wild Things, and they were awful. Mostly a defensively-minded team, our defenders basically
played at midfield just to get a chance to touch the ball. Kelsey and Justin
were dribbling circles around their confused opponents, David and Ashton
passing around like a game of Keepaway with four-year-olds. The scoreboard
showed Panthers 4, Wild Things 0, and it was only the second quarter. Wayne
looked so bored that he was nearly falling asleep standing up, he’d scored our
first goal, then Justin, Kelsey and David.
By halftime I’d had more than
enough. “That’s…uh, good, what y’all did out there. So…our starters will rest
most of, if not all, the second half. We – It’s embarrassing.” Several nervous
giggles. “Sorry…”
We sent out Ashton, Alex, Zoey and
Bailey as attackers, Abby and Reese to defend. They did well; Ashton notched
two goals, Alex added another, Abby made two or three halfway-decent passes,
and Reese kicked a ball rolling towards
him without cowering away in petrified terror. There was, unfortunately for
nearly everyone except Wayne’s dad, one entire period left to go. That’s when
somebody had the brilliant idea to practice defense on themselves, if not
against the Wild Things. Our offense needed the practice, it seemed. Justin let
a ball go by him, Alex managed to slow it down, not quite trapping it before it
was knocked away by several green jerseys, and despite Ashton’s valliant
attempt to clear it away, it slipped over the end line. Happily, it wasn’t
anywhere between the goalposts. Stephen the ref was flipping through his rule
book. “Can’t you call this thing over by now?” Chrissy pleaded. He looked
pained. “There isn’t a mercy rule that I can find. Sorry.”
“End it,” was all Trent could say
during a quick time-out. They tried. Kelsey launched a perfect pass up the
middle to Wayne, who ricocheted the sphere towards Justin, he headed it down to
David, his shot was ever-so-slightly wide left. Everyone packed up as soon as
they possibly could. Besides that horrible 7-0 disaster win, their team didn’t
even get a shot off all day, the Roadrunners galloped away from the Lasers 5-0,
the Falcons took down the Dalmatians 4-2, and the Mustangs and Avengers fought
a tough battle before the Avengers’ 4-3 victory.
“So…what can we work on for
practice tomorrow night?” I asked while picking up the dinner dishes.
“Welll…” Chrissy thought a minute.
“Wayne always looks either bored out of his mind or like he’s going to kill
somebody, maybe lighten up?”
“Yeah…it’s his dad. He doesn’t even
like soccer all that much, but his dad drives him so hard…he’s scared to death
he isn’t gonna measure up.”
“Abby and Reese seem to be
improving some, they both touched the ball without acting like it was
radioactive or anything.”
“Uh-huh…that’s good.”
“Connor and Trav’s goalkeeping?”
“It could use some work,”
“And what about just getting to
know the kids, what they enjoy, what they don’t, like that?”
“That’s a great idea, sis!”
Most of the team was standing in a
circle passing four balls around, Travis and Connor were standing there
uncertainly looking at each other, getting ready to defend the goal from my
shooting. “You guys ready?” “Uh…sure…” “I guess?” I stepped back and took a
practice shot. Sailed over the top of the net and bounced off Tammy’s Suburban.
“Whoops…sorry!” She grinned and made an “It’s fine” gesture. Our goalies were
staring at each other open-mouthed. “Did. You. See…?” “No way.” “I need more
practice.” I commented cheerfully.
Justin nudged Kelsey. “Did you see
what Ryan just did?” “No, what?” “Punted a field goal that hit Mrs. Owens’
car.” Kelsey’s eyes lit up. “Seriously? That’s awesome!”
I purposely aimed short and low for
the next few kicks, sending skidding grounders their way. Trav pounced on
several, Connor more clumsily stopped his.
“How does he shoot left-footed?” ‘I
don’t know…wonder if he could teach us?” was Justin’s reply. “I never
understood how he did that,” Trent commented.
Chip-shot time, a few light
floaters in a row now. Trav had no chance, Questions swatted down the balls
near him easily.
The passing circle had broken up by
now, our trio was drawing curious stares from their teammates and
encouragements shouted towards the goalies. The parents waiting tonight began
to be interested, too. Tammy, Sarah, Kevin and Paisley stepped just inside the
sideline, waiting to see what would happen next. “Don’t go easy on ‘em, Ryan!”
Kevin yelled. I must have looked dubious. “It’ll make ‘em better,” Tammy
affirmed. Sarah returned from her car with her Canon. I shrugged. “Here goes
nothin’,” I planted my anchor foot solidly in the grass and hammered that ball.
Left corner, high. Connor leaped for it, and got a hand on the lime green
meteor. It didn’t have a prayer of not going in, but he touched it, which was
amazing in itself, given the speed and trajectory. “All right!!” Wayne clapped.
“Good one, Questions,” Chrissy said softly.
We continued this drill for about
five minutes more, then gathered into a large loosely-spread-out huddle.
“So…what’re we supposed to do now?” Trent muttered.
“Talk,” I answered.
“About…?”
“Well, why did you guys sign up
this season? What do you like about playing soccer?” I asked the kids.
“My dad wanted me to,” Wayne said.
“I had to play,” David said
quietly.
“Tried it last year, had a good
time, and Alex wanted to stick together,” Ashton answered.
“I want to win. If there’s a sport
to play, I’ll try it,” stated Kelsey.
“I don’t know…just seemed like a
good way to spend the summer, I guess,” was Justin’s answer.
“My grandma gets her sports mixed
up. She thought I was signing up to play football,” Bailey giggled. “Well, you
sorta are…” Kelsey thought about it.
“My mom! She was tired of me
zooming all over the place, said I needed ‘an outlet for all that energy’, or
somethin’ like that,’ Zoey laughed.
Everyone else laughed, too.
“I wanted to learn about a new
sport,” Connor explained.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” Reese
murmured.
“Wanted to play with Ash,” Alex
smiled shyly.
“Want pway ball, I kick it!” Abby
leaped into the conversation, whether by impatience or actually understanding
the question for once, nobody knew for sure. “That’s a good reason,” Chrissy
grinned. “The Big Green,” Travis
looked embarrassed.
“LOVE that movie!” “That’s a great
one!” We looked at each other, one of those almost twin-like mental connection
times. “Do they usually do that?” somebody asked Trent. “What? Say the same
thing at the same time?” “Yeah. It’s weird.” “Is not!” Me, Chrissy and the
Owenses all said together. “See what we mean?” Kelsey hummed that old Britney
Spears song “Oops, I Did It Again”.
“Wow. I just realized something. We
were like, almost your all’s age when that song came out.” Trent marveled to
himself.
“Is The Big Green the one with the goat?” Justin asked. “Uh-huh,
Ernie.” Trav nodded. “Yeah, I think I’ve seen that.”
“What about the one with that dog?”
“Air Bud 3, World Pup?” “No; the
movie with that teacher lady from The Big
Green.” The coaching staff stared at each other blankly for a minute. “Oh! Soccer Dog?” Chrissy remembered hazily.
“Yup. That’s a good one.” “I didn’t really like that one.” she answered. “Huh.
Why not?”
“Which movie is it with the
Buzzards and Hurricanes? There’s those pretty girls in it, and they change
teams…” Giggles and stares led to Wayne’s sentence trailing off, as he realized
he’d admitted to thinking some girls were pretty. “Switching Goals. That’s got the Olsen twins in it.” I nodded. “And
they could play, too!” Wayne added emphatically, to ward off any further
accusations of holding a crush on movie stars. “You aren’t the only one who
thought they looked and played pretty nice,” I grinned slightly. Trent grew
alarmed. “Who, me?”
“So who was it you wanted on the
Panthers; Sam or Emma?”
“Both…” he muttered.
“See?” I grinned. Chrissy rolled
her eyes, looking disgusted.
“How ‘bout a quick race before calling it a night? From one goal to the
other,” she urged the team on. They clamorously took up a shaky line by the
goalpost. “You guys, too.” “Hey, look, Deputy Dog! Got any Twinkies, Dawg?” I
laughed to myself, trying to get up to speed behind them. These are good kids, they get obscure movie
references. Or maybe that just means I have terrible movie preferences?"
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