“Today’d be a good day for a soccer game.”

My dad and I have a bond. Over the years of my youth I played
many sports–basketball, baseball and tennis among them. But there
was, and will always be, a small corner of my heart reserved for
soccer. My dad coached my peewee team since before I can remember,
even up until 9th grade. He came to most every game I played in,
whether school or club ball throughout high school. He sacrificed
every weekend of the fall and spring, and a lot of weeknights, for
more than a decade to first help me play, and later just to watch
me play, a game that eventually became a passion. If you asked him
now I’m sure he would never have thought to use the word
“sacrifice” when talking about those years and all of those games,
but him not viewing it as a sacrifice doesn’t change my
appreciation of all the things he gave up.

But soccer was a sport I gave up playing long ago. I don’t
regret the decision, but there will always be times when something,
usually a random occurrence, stirs a faint memory and makes me
think about the those glory days of years past. They are usually
simple things like the smell of freshly cut grass, a dew-covered
field or catching a glimpse of the sun as it breaks between two
clouds and then disappears again. But something about them strikes
a chord with me, somewhere deep down, and it just takes me back,
like a bad Kenny Chesney song or a good Norman Rockwell
painting.

And occasionally, one of these indiscriminate occurrences will
take place when I am actually around my dad. Though these
instances–just through the everyday changes that happen in life,
have become more fleeting, we both still recognize them, whenever
and wherever they might occur. And we just know. We don’t have to
say anything; we’re both thinking it. “Today would be a good day
for a soccer game.”

And maybe that’s the Ernie Banks fan in my dad trickling down to
his younger son, but the truth is that we both know what Mr. Cub
meant when he so famously said: “It’s a beautiful day for a game,
let’s play two.” Banks’ passion was baseball; ours was soccer.

Say what you want. It’s cheesy, it’s corny and it’s a pathetic
attempt at being sentimental. But what’s wrong with that? Sure, we
know that it’s only a soccer game. But one man’s bordem is another
man’s dream. I know there are millions of things out there that
people take seriously that I would find laughable.

But just the same, I know that there are people who can stroke
the ivory bars of a piano and be taken back in their own nostalgic
fit to when their mom taught them how to tickle the ivories. And
there are people who can open a book from their youth and remember
what it was like to have their dad read it to them the very first
time. Soccer games are simply my most vivid memories of childhood
bliss.

I don’t pretend to assume that soccer games in my youth were the
most important part of my childhood. But, then again, the important
things surely weren’t whether I had my homework turned in every day
in math class or if my school uniform wasn’t wrinkled, rather if I
remembered to bring my cleats and my shin-guards to my 8 a.m. game
Saturday morning.

And now, as a guy (I refrained from using the word “man”
purposely, to prolong the inevitable) who sees his future rapidly
approaching, as most college seniors do, I seem to spend some time
every now and then reflecting on the things I have actually done in
my life. It’s not been much, but it’s been mine. I wouldn’t trade a
moment of it for anything, and, likewise, I would go back and
relive it if I could. There are certain things that just don’t seem
as cool to do as they did 10 years ago, like hanging posters of
“MJ” on my bedroom wall and collecting Magic trading cards. But the
soccer games do, and they probably, and hopefully, always will. The
memories of those days, outcomes and rainouts notwithstanding, are
a tie to my past and a bond to my father.

Since their invention, sports have been a connection for fathers
and sons everywhere. Maybe not all, but some, and I’m glad that I
can count myself to be a member of that club. With my dad.