I’ve sure been enjoying watching the World Cup on TV and marveling at the talented athletes and well matched teams.
My family has always loved soccer. My dad coached for 11 seasons and my younger sister Kelley played from the time she was 8, and attended Cal Poly on full athletic scholarship for women’s soccer and track. As a high school senior, she was also selected to play on one of our nation’s first elite women’s teams tro compete in Europe. At six feet tall and wicked fast, she was a real force on the playing field.
I loved watching she and her teammates play and somehow got convinced by my dad and one of his coaching friends to play one year during high school on an AYSO 16-18 year old girl’s team. I’ve never been particularly athletic but I got drafted by the coach before he even saw me play. Poor guy must have assumed that I possessed at least a fraction of Kelley’s athletic ability.
If I had any saving grace on the soccer field, it was that I was in shape and could keep running for 60 minutes. Our coach told me that I was a natural defender and my job was to try and stay with the other team’s forward and be like a “gnat” when they ran by with the ball. When I say that I could run for 60 minutes, it’s important to understand that my ability to keep moving in no way made me fast or agile. The opposing forwards usually made one quick fake and ran straight past me.
Its pretty fair to say that during my season as a player, my actual encounters with the soccer ball were rare, and ranged from non events to full blown disasters. I only mention this because every time I sit down and watch a World Cup game, a specific memory floods back to me even after almost 45 years.
The season I played, our team made the league playoffs. It was the fall of my junior year. Game day was a Saturday in December 1977, and also the day of our winter formal at school. I had set my hair in curlers the night before so I’d be ready to go to the dance after our game. I was a little nervous about time because I knew if we won our first match, we’d play for the league championship later the same day.
I had a date to the dance with a very handsome senior who was a cross country runner with epically good hair and I couldn’t wait to get home from soccer and get gussied for what I naturally thought was the most important event of the day. Unfortunately, when I woke up early for the game that Saturday, my thick mop of long hair was not yet dry. So I did what any dedicated student athlete would do, I went through my Nana’s scarf drawer and found one in red to match my soccer jersey and tied it over my curlers. Then, I hopped into my old jeep and headed for the game. Suffice it to say, I was the only soccer player anywhere on the six field complex wearing an old-lady silk headscarf, and my coach and teammates were, in a word, speechless.
Now if you know anything about AYSO, you know it’s all about making sure every kid participates, and gets to play at least 50% of each game. Still, this was the playoffs and I was shocked when coach started me. I tried to let him know that it was okay, I didn’t need to play, and just wanted our best players on the field. Our coach Mr. Spears was a great guy, and never had a bad word for me on or off the field. He was encouraging, but I knew that he was beyond perplexed by how a kid who attended every practice and was basically in shape could be so completely untalented on the field of play.
When it came to my performance that day, my first quarter was uneventful until about ten minutes in, when a forward on the opposing team accidentally hooked me with her elbow as she darted past me. It put me down hard, and when I hit the turf, it knocked the wind out of me. I was flat on my back trying to get my breath back and not able to see much because a few of my curlers and head scarf had slipped over my eyes.
I actually felt bad for the poor girl who knocked me down, our collision became her second major foul of the day, and with it, she was issued a yellow card warning. Her coach immediately pulled her from action in order to save her for later in the game. I remember being hugged by our team captain as I staggered off the field. I think she even tied my scarf back on for me. I was the unlikely hero of the first quarter. My being at the right place to be knocked down by the other team’s power forward had given our team a big advantage. We scored two goals in the second quarter and led the game 2-1 at the half.
I was unprepared for what happened next. After the half, coach put me back in to play the third quarter. He told me I’d done a great job being a “gnat” around the other team’s forward, and told me to keep up the good work, but sent me to the other side of the field. I protested because I knew that playing on the opposite side of the field would necessarily cause me to have to turn, run and kick putting my left foot forward more often, and frankly, being right footed - that wasn’t going to be pretty. Coach Spears just shook his head at my logic, gave me a grin and sent me into battle. The third quarter was almost over and I was pretty tired from chasing their left forward when she and I collided and I took my second spill of the game. This time, my fall can be described as a classic face plant and the cherry on top was that I didn’t manage to get my arms up to break my fall, and I was able to run a little turf up my nose and skin both of my knees in one efficient motion.
The fall really rang my bell, and even in that moment I lamented why I’d ever agreed to try playing soccer. As a teammate gave me a hand and pulled me to my feet, I realized something even more horrible was now confronting me. I was being told to come take a penalty kick on goal. I asked if someone else could kick, but the referee motioned for me to come over as he placed the ball. So there I was, bloody, dirty nose and knees, curlers and head scarf, grass stains all over my uniform, and my team lining up to assist my shot on goal. I remember that our team captain told me to relax, and take my best shot, just like in practice. (No help there). Then came the big moment. I backed up a few steps so I could really get some momentum toward the ball. I charged and kicked with all my might, and… missed. Why hadn’t my baseball star brother been there to remind me to “keep your eye of the ball?” I couldn’t believe it had happened. I never honestly expected to score; but dang, even I expected myself to make some meaningful contact with the ball. In the aftermath of my colossal miss, the ball kind of rolled a foot or so to the right and just stopped until a scrum of players from both teams descended on its position. That was it, no heroic shot on goal, no near miss…just a huge whiff. I don’t think I ever recovered. Neither did our team. No one scored a tying goal and our season ended in a 3-1 loss.
The good news about that fateful day is that because we had no second game, I made it home in time to shower, take several aspirin, uncoil my hair and slip into a beautiful long blue dress that covered my skinned knees. My date arrived on time and as I recall, we had a lovely time at the winter formal.
It took me a while to be able to laugh about my days as a soccer player and look my teammates in the eye; but once I realized that some folks are born athletes and some are born spectators. Today I watched a forward from the Netherlands score a goal by kicking a ball bicycle style backwards over his own head. It was an epic maneuver. All I could think while watching him throw his whole body into the air was, wow those guys are really talented and thank God it wasn’t me out there.
Kris Stewart is a non-soccer playing cattle rancher from Paradise Valley, Nevada.
