The Funny Thing About Soccer

I played soccer for about 14 years.  I hesitate to start with that sentence because now you might be picturing me as an excellent player.  I was not.  I was average but with an above average love of the game.  However that didn’t stop me from playing and loving the game for over half of my life.  I still love it, I just don’t play it anymore.

In high school I scored 11 goals in four years. I never started, was never a captain or a leader of any sort.  But I still had a blast.  My high school team was actually a big deal at the time, though now they’re less competitive.  When I was there we were great.

Anyway here’s the story.  My senior year we played a school called St. Vincent’s. Despite their name, they weren’t very nice. Not that our team was either.  It was a unfriendly rivalry.  They hadn’t been scored on all season.  It took approximately 30 seconds for them to score on us.  Then towards the end of the first half they scored again.  By the time I got in we were down 0-3 with fifteen minutes or so left in the game.  I got the ball beat one defender and another, got it taken away.  But as the girl went to pass it I managed to get in front of it and block it.  In bounced off me and headed toward to goal.  I followed it in and scored.  We lost that game 1-3 but the aftermath is still one of my happiest memories.

Group photo after that game, we don’t even look like we lost.

As I’ve said before I’m very competitive and I do wish we would have won that game, but even though we didn’t we were still in good spirits.  St. Vincent’s went on to win the championship that year, we were eliminated the second round of the playoffs.

I’ve been lacking in the funny story department this week but I’ll try and get things going again tomorrow.

Leenie