It's the smell that gets me. Every year in late August and September, when the air begins to cool off in the evening as the sun sets and the summer humidity is only a thing of the daytime. It's walking out the school doors and catching that whiff of freshly mown grass. For the first time since last spring, my nostrils aren't being tormented by the fierce heat of the day.
I stand in front of the west doors, taking in as much of the air as I can before I know I have to move on, walk to my car, and drive home. Beneath the smell of grass and the calm of the evening sky, I hear the faint noises of boys playing soccer, whistles blowing, players calling each other's names, coaches yelling, balls ricocheting of the crossbars, and a crowd cheering. It takes me back to a time in my life that I don't really talk about much anymore.
It's been years since I last touched a soccer ball competitively, but I've still managed to stay close to the sport. There were the two years I coached C-team soccer at the high school, the fall that Emily and I coached a youth team in our area, and all the times I have the wrestling team play soccer in the gym as an alternative to traditional conditioning.
The wrestlers (mostly macho, American football types) always grumble and ask why we play soccer, but I heard once that in an average game, a player will run about 5 miles. I don't know if it's true, but that possibly erroneous bit of data gives me good reason to figuratively step into my old soccer shoes and play a little bit. Even on a gymnasium floor, wearing wrestling shoes and playing against a hoard of boys, most of whom had never played before in their lives, the feeling of a ball at my feet really brings back memories.
Whether it's on a field as a coach, a gym floor with clumsy wrestlers, or waxing nostalgic as a 30-year-old teacher, my mind flashes through myriad images in my mind. Standing on the field under the stadium lights, alternating between hopping up and down and pulling my leg back to stretch my quads, I yell, "Let's go, Blues!" I wait for the ref to blow his whistle, his signal to start the game. I stay mostly focused, although briefly I do catch sight of a few fans rushing in a little bit late, not wanting to miss a second.
Soccer was an important step in my so-called initiation into manhood. Through games during drizzling cold rain and even sleet and snow, it was these times that I found myself standing up against that little voice inside that kept telling me to give it up. It was the time I had a nasty skin abrasion on my elbow, and some blood was soaking through my white jersey. Some crybaby player on the other team told the ref and I had to leave the field. I stepped off, had my elbow taped by the assistant coach, and spat on the field. Pussy, I thought to myself. He's just afraid of a little blood. Probably saw it as his only chance to get a break in the game. I'd been pushing him outside all evening; he couldn't get anything through to the middle. I went right back into the game, seeking to make up for the time I had to be off the field.
I'm still incredibly proud of how I overcame my inexperience and served my senior year as a starting defender. One of our stud juniors moved from outside defender to stopper and a fellow senior defender broke his foot early in the season, thereby opening a door for me to improve upon a junior season in which I spent most games on the bench waiting for us to run the score up so I could go in. I arose to the challenge of starting, not with ease, but with a feeling that I simply had to do my part for the team. That season, I often felt like I did more than my part. Most games, I ended up covering two or three different opponents because our midfield tended to drink too much beer on the weekends and couldn't get back on defense quick enough. I played my heart out at practice and persevered through sickness and injury when our studs often sat out because they didn't feel like practicing that day. I never spoke up to the coach about how it infuriated me that these guys got away with skipping out on training yet still played most of the games. I should have said something. I still feel like their weaknesses were the reasons we never lived up to our potential that year.
It's a memory that I don't revisit often -- my last competitive soccer game ever. In the state quarterfinals on our home field, we fell in overtime to a talented team from Wichita. As I watched the ball land at the back of our net, I fell to my knees. Some little kid -- the upstart forward I'd been shutting down all night -- patted me on the back and said, "Good game." He was a boy and I was a man, and I was the one in tears. I pulled myself together and walked slowly to the center of the field. I was numb to the cheers of consolation and my teammates' hugs. We ran our traditional lap around the field to greet the fans, some of them also in tears. I looked none of them in the eye as we ran past them and held our hands out to give them all five. I couldn't stand to hear the coach's speech after our lap; he had nothing important to say to me, at least. I hurried to the parking lot and jumped in my car. I don't know why, but I drove out into the county, still wearing my uniform, shin guards, and cleats, and found some empty road that had just recently been paved for some new residential development.
I remember jumping out of my Ford Bronco, sitting on the cool pavement. I held my arms around my knees and dropped my head, sobbing. With the full moon shining above, I couldn't find any reason as to why I should be so upset. I wasn't a "soccer guy" and that much was evident. In high school, it always seemed to boil down to this question: what was my identity anyway?
My wardrobe consisted of few t-shirts that weren't wrestling shirts, and my daily workout attire consisted of mesh shorts (not the sleek soccer-style shorts) and the afore-mentioned wrestling shirts. I was a wrestler, not a soccer player, at heart. It wasn't long after I started winning wrestling tournaments in 8th grade that I figured out that I could use wrestling moves on the field. I figured out that with a few well-played slide tackles and hip bumps, along with some arm-ties when over-zealous forwards reached in too far, I could make a defender to be reckoned with. These were the things that made up for the fact that most of the time I couldn't pass the ball straight to save my life.
I made the varsity team my junior year because few of the others on the team were faster than me in sprints or even the mile. I had spent my summer running, lifting, and staying out of trouble. No one else on the team could squat over 350 or bench 250 like me. A few years later, I found out that the old coach, now an assistant principal, had watched me during the physical and endurance trials and told the new coach that he simply had to take me for varsity. I'm glad the old British fellow hadn't witnessed me during the field and technique trials.
By the time I got into high school soccer, I had distanced myself from my old traveling competitive team. Eventually, the team disbanded and the guys went their own separate ways. I was just a player in the fall season -- the high school season. I wasn't a member of Topeka United, Lazio, or Kansas Select, nor was I slated to be on any Olympic Development Program team. After all, I was just a late starter with sloppy technique and no fancy ball tricks. That made no matter to me, however. I just liked to play.
I liked the feeling of a solid strike on the ball, sending it across the field to an open teammate, or hitting a slide tackle just right, so clean and so perfectly-timed that there was no danger of getting carded. I like jumping in the air to head the ball, feet pushing off just right to get max lift, keeping eyes open long enough to see the ball sent right where I wanted it to go.
Soccer was the only time I can remember hearing a crowd cheer for me as I competed. A roar being sent up through the fans as I would make a play. I never was a soccer guy. I never had Adidas Copas, I never played for a professional coach, and I never fit the stereotype. Nonetheless, soccer helped make me who I am today. That's why on a stray evening in the fall, whenever I end up staying late at school to catch up on some work, part of me will always be out there on that field, shin guards strapped on, cleats dug in to the field, itching to knock an arrogant forward on his rear end.
