Soccer Saves

In case you didn’t realize from all the Tim Howard memes (not that I’m complaining, I kinda want him to father my children), soccer is finally starting to be more of a “thing.” I am, of course, specifically talking about here in America. We’re a little late to the soccer bandwagon. Of course the majority of us are going to jump back off the wagon, wait four more years, and then climb back on. It’s a bit ridiculous.

Personally, I like soccer. I wish it was more popular here. I’m not saying I don’t like football, because you know I do, but I hate how much people hate on soccer. We used to go to professional soccer games when I was a kid, and I can honestly tell you I enjoyed them more than any time I’ve been talked into watching baseball, hockey, tennis, or golf. And I’m not even talking about watching on tv, but going to an event.

But I’m not here to trash your favorite sport; I’m here to talk about soccer. Back in the day I used to play a little. I don’t really remember why I started playing. With ballet, for example, I specifically remember dying to be a ballerina. Trumpet was an attempt to escape piano lessons since my parents insisted on being musical. But soccer? No idea. It might have been a decision by my parents to give my brother and me some social skills since we were homeschooled at that point. It might have been us asking to play. It doesn’t really matter; the end result was I LOVED IT.

We used to play all year round in various leagues. Winter was the worst simply because it sucked playing indoors, but I’d bet my poor parents appreciated the respite from sitting in the heat all day long. I’m pretty sure at some point I even did some soccer camp thing that involved practicing for literally hours every day for weeks, and I loved that too.

Maybe I needed different glasses...

Still, there were a few things I didn’t like about soccer. I never was very good at hitting the ball with my head. Generally, when I tried, I managed to knock off my glasses. Try being in the middle of a game and having a Velma moment – it sucks. Once I even managed to knock myself out. No brain damage (says me), but I distinctly remember waking up and trying to figure out why I was on the ground and what was happening. I stopped trying to head bunt it for awhile after that.

Another thing that sucked – they generally made us rotate positions. This did nothing but piss me off. Especially when they made me play goalie. The entire reason I like soccer is that my hand-eye coordination is crap. So yeah, let’s put me in the goal to catch/block balls flying at my face. Brilliant. Luckily this didn’t happen too often (lucky both for my team, and for my stress levels), but one of my coaches was very insistent on me playing forward somewhat regularly. This made absolutely no sense to me. I liked playing defense. Why make me play offense when you know I hate it (and trust me, I made sure everyone knew my feelings on the matter)??

One of my biggest life regrets is that I stopped playing soccer. I’ve mentioned before that quitting is one of my worst habits. Soccer is a little odd in that I actually rather support the reasoning behind why I quit. It stopped being fun, and I think you should do what you enjoy. But it wasn’t because of the game itself, but because of people’s reactions to it.

He was adorable, but crazy

If you think I’m crazy, talk to my brother about soccer. It’s getting to almost 20 years since we played, and he will still go on a rant about that championship game they lost because “the refs were bribed.” Seriously, he was a little 8 or 9 year old running around SCREAMING because he was convinced the refs were working for the other team. The sad thing is there were a LOT of people like that. Not my parents, thankfully, but other parents on the team, parents from the other teams, even the other players would all go bat-shit crazy about things. I didn’t like it. While I personally wasn’t getting yelled at too much, I started playing in constant fear that if I did make mistakes, someone would flip out about it.

My coworkers and I were comparing soccer stories as we watched the USA match, and one of the nicest guys there told us about one of his last games as a kid when the other team’s families kept yelling to “take out that little fat boy!” (him being the fact boy). That’s awful, and that’s not even the worst example I could come up with. We can pretend words don’t hurt all we want, but they do, and when you’re a child they shape your perception of yourself. Is it so surprising that he quit that year?

So I understand why I quit, but on the other hand I really wish that I had stuck it out for two main reasons.

1. People are jerks. While it’s appalling that we treat our children this way and I am in no way excusing the behavior, we have to learn to expect it. By continuing to quit activities when they turned stressful and had too many expectations, I merely learned to avoid stress and negativity, not how to actually deal with it. This is why I had no good stress busting habits until in my 20s. 

2. I like how I felt when I played soccer. In a word, I felt empowered. You may not believe this (no one ever does), but I was a defensive TANK. I once managed to even knock my coach down when he tried to get past me. Clearly, it didn’t happen. I was a very aggressive player on defense. I was confident on the field at an age where I otherwise felt awkward and ridiculous. I miss that feeling.

And that is the main moral to this otherwise rambling post. When I think about quitting soccer, I still understand my reasons, but I am ashamed that I let people take away my joy without at least trying to work through it. Don’t give up on what really makes you happy. But don’t expect it to always be easy either. Sometimes we need some growing pain to actually, you know, grow.

Why Reading Should be a Sport.

 I’ve never been great at sports. Actually, I’ve never even been okay at sports. Part of it is my fail genes. I have no hand-eye coordination. Seriously. None. I can’t even throw things in any kind of consistent fashion. I’m not even sure I know how to aim. I think I’m aiming, but considering where things end up I’m starting to suspect otherwise.

For a while I played soccer, which I did much better at (and yes, I’m ending my sentence with a preposition, deal with it).  Eye-feet coordination is way more my thing. But that didn’t last long, because of the second part of the issue… my inability to stick with activities. Sure, if I had practiced I’d probably get better, but I never liked any sport enough to dedicate the time. Probably for the best. My brother swears I would have gotten kicked out of almost every soccer game as I got older. I was a teeny bit aggressive.

Now reading, that was something to get into. Fate & genetics, nurture & nature all combined to develop my reading skills. Initially I found it very hard to learn to read. I wasn’t one of those prodigies reading newspapers at age 2.  I remember struggling with stupid flashcards while my mom quizzed me in her bedroom. There were a lot of ducks all over the walls. Maybe that’s why I hate ducks? I subconsciously associate them with hating to learn my phonics? Nah, it’s more likely the result of a vicious duck & geese attack while trying to innocently feed them bread.

Anyway, despite the rough start learning the basics, I loved reading. Both my parents are great readers. They read to me frequently when I was young. Actually, my mom used to read The Hobbit to my brother and I. Talk about starting neekness at a young age.

I still might have just been an average reader at best, but other factors combined to increase the appeal. They say reading is an escape, and boy was it ever for me. I used reading to escape more and more situations until it was my answer for everything.

Take for instance my brother. We get along great now, but when we were younger I couldn’t stand him. I’ll give you a hint why… his common nickname was “Annoy Boy.” He could only entertain himself by irritating others. My parents told me time and time again to ignore him. But I couldn’t UNTIL I started reading all the time. There’s this great about me and reading. When I’m really into a book the world is dead to me. You can be talking right to me and I don’t hear a thing. That is not an exaggeration. At all.

Then there was the whole thing with me being a picky eater. I’d like to first point out that while I’m still not perfectly normal on that factor (ask me about sandwiches sometime…) I am MUCH, MUCH better. As a child there were very few things I could eat. Nothing complicated. Food couldn’t touch. Nothing even remotely spicy. Even food I liked could gross me out depending on the texture. I soon realized that if I read while eating, I didn’t notice the taste or texture as much. I wasn’t allowed to read during family dinners, but this saved me a lot during lunch.

Additionally, I was a very fearful child. Many things scared me… aliens, spiders, the dark, sharks… just to name a few. I also had trouble sleeping. This led to frequent reading at night when I couldn’t fall asleep, and starting to smuggle books into the bath so I could distract myself from the possibility of sharks emerging from the drain.

I know, I know, at this point you’re thinking I was the worst child in the world. Luckily I was at least adorable. But what it comes down to is that eventually I became a super awesome fast reader. Seriously, I’m a champ.

Back when the Harry Potter books were still coming out I worked part-time at a bookstore, and we would always have a midnight party when the new book was released. I would work the midnight party, get home late, read the entire new book, and then open the store the next morning by 8. When the 7^th book came out I actually re-read a book every night that week so that the whole series would be fresh in my mind. This was while working 2 jobs, roughly around 70 hours a week. I worked during the day, came home and read, and besides the night of the midnight release for Deathly Hallows still managed to get a decent amount of sleep.

So why should reading be a sport? Because I’d win. Not every time. There’s always a faster, more comprehensive reader out there. But at least some times!

It seems like everything else can be defined as a sport these days. Seriously what is the criteria? In college my friends and I decided that any activity that can make your nipples bleed counts as a sport. This came up after discussing cross-country track, and while I’d like to say I’m not that one that made that definition, there is a strong possibility it was me. They always seem to blame me for those kinds of things. Anyway, this quickly opened up the world of sports to several new activities in our minds. At the time, reading was not one of them.

I guess it could be. Maybe if you accidentally closed the book quickly and your chest was bare? Or if you were reading naked while walking down the steps and tripped? I think the better plan is to just make a new definition for sports. Something that would include reading, so we can start having reading matches. I can win some, get an endorsement, and eventually get paid to read. That would be AWESOME.