Every spring you could smell the grass in the neighborhood as spring appeared all around us. I smelled that grass and instantly knew I better start practicing because soccer was starting. League games were played down at a complex of fields called New Green Valley. They had eight fields down there and I spent a good portion of my youth on those fields. I recall that there was a BMX dirt track on the other side of the woods at the far end. Sometimes you could even see races through the foilage. Now, the second year that I played, we had games at Old Green Valley, which was the former soccer complex. This emerged as the single most miserable year that I had in soccer. I soon realized that I was not very good at the game. The coach of my team made me realize that fact and it simply was not fun anymore. Before the next season, I vowed that I would improve. I began to kick the ball against our garage over and over until it got dark. The practice paid off as the next season was probably the single most enjoyable year I ever had in soccer. My performance that season was the reason that I even got selected to the traveling team. My coach from the previous year later came up to me and said that I was not the same player from before. I wanted to say, "Gee, thanks sir, for believing in me."
As I have gotten older, one of the things that I remember about playing club soccer are many of the little things. Yes, I do still remember the goals that I scored and the shootouts I participated in. Yet, I can still remember what it felt like to walk in the gravel parking lot with your cleats on. You never wanted to run with your cleats over there because if you fell your knee was going to get scraped. I remember the concession stand being this really ugly green trailer, but the hotdogs seemed good. Speaking of food, the other great thing that I remember were the pizza parties at the end of the season. There was nothing greater than winning the club tournament and going to the local Happy Joe's to celebrate. The Pepsi always tasted a lot better when you were a winner.
Yet, the game and the team were what made this so fantastic. I remember that I used to pray every season for a good team and I actually believed that it worked the first few years. There was no greater feeling than winning a game and sometimes going to watch my brother play in the afternoon. Yes, I do remember playing games in the very early morning hours, and I wonder today how in the heck I ever got up that early to play soccer. If you won, one sat there in the lawn chair next to mom as if you were a prince on his throne.
