Here I am sitting on the edge of a soccer field outside Dayton Ohio, on the canvas folding chair I brought in my car from Pittsburgh. Weather predictions were for rain but it’s sunny, hot and humid. Unseen and unnamed bugs are having a good lunch on me, and I’m wishing I had a big umbrella as shelter from the sun like several of the more experienced soccer moms brought.
I’m doing my best to keep up with what’s happening on the field. My granddaughter isn’t playing right now but I recognize several of the girls that have played with her since they were tiny tots, kicking soccer balls on the sidelines at their big brothers’ games. Like many Americans I wasn’t introduced to soccer until relatively recently. It took my grandkids getting involved for me to start taking notice of the sport the rest of the world calls “football.” At the all girls’ high school I attended in Louisville Kentucky we played field hockey, though as a dancer, I was less than enthusiastic about the big wooden sticks we swung at one another while running across the field. The school sponsored a basketball and volleyball team as well, but the notion of having spectators come to watch girls play any sport hadn’t occurred to many people yet.
Times have definitely changed. The World Cup is in progress in Brazil and the television audiences in the U.S. are breaking all records. Watching the U.S. game at a restaurant last night with the team and their parents and coaches, I caught the tremendous sense of excitement as fortunes change quickly and near misses decide fates. These “surprises” may help explain why most of the world’s people are enamored soccer spectators.
The soccer I’m witnessing is my granddaughter and her team, competing in the national tournament for high school aged girls. They won the state of Nebraska to get here but they’ve run into stuff competition. They weren’t able to score in their first two games and this one’s the final game, so tension is building. Just when I’m thinking the eleven-hour ride home is not going to be pleasant for the team members, or the parents accompanying them, the girls find their grove, and the energy shifts. No longer struggling individually, they connect with one another. The ball zigzags across the field, from one player to the next. The girls call to one another and respond quickly. They guard their opponents relentlessly, and doggedly move the ball down the field towards their net. I’m on my feet and the sun and heat and bugs are gone. Along with the parents and other spectators, I’m cheering as they score, and score, and score. The finish? 5-2.
