I was fortunate enough to play on a club team where we would
travel to Dayton to play about half of our games. We used walkie talkies to
stay in contact while traveling since this was before cell phones. Being a
group of 14 year old boys we joked around a lot on our trips. One time we
passed a police cruiser on the highway. One of my teammates parent’s was speeding
and got pulled over. My teammate Nick who had a walkie talkie comes over the
air “Mayday Mayday I got a bogie on me!” The entire team was laughing. To this
day I still joke with my family about it.
During my sophomore year of high school I took most of our
free kicks in the attacking half of the field. At an away game against one of
our rivals there was a free kick about 35 yards out that I took. I took the
kick and my intention was to put it about the 6 yard box so it could be headed
on goal. I miss hit the ball and it went farther than I intended but with where
the kick was on the field it drifted over the keeper’s hands into the upper
left corner for the goal. It’s really the only goal that I remember scoring
mainly because it seemed like the ball just hung in the air forever and at the
last moment dipped perfectly.
From the referee side there are too many to list here. I was
privileged to referee regional and national finals , multiple USL Pro games and
an MLS scrimmage. Many of these memories
are so great because they were with great people. I would like to mention Dan
Fennema in particular because we traveled together a lot and he was a great
mentor to me. On the field my favorite memories actually came before a game. I
was refereeing an adult amateur game between two Hispanic teams who had gotten
into a fight the last time they played. As we were getting ready for the coin
toss the captains were speaking Spanish to each other. I unfortunately do not
know Spanish so my response was to start speaking German to them and do the
coin toss through hand motions. At the end the captains said good luck to each
other, they shook my hand and said good luck to which I just smiled and replied
good luck back to them, all of this in clear English. The rest of the game we
communicated to each other in English and the game was almost perfect.
My coaching career has been rather short thus far but my
favorite memory so far came at the end of the year soccer tournament with my U9
team in the Spring of 2014. The boys had been playing well and improving in the
weeks leading up to the tournament but couldn’t get over the hump to win. Then
everything clicked in their first game. They went on to win the tournament and
were so happy with that after a season of being so close. The winning is not
what I remember however. I remember that the boys played great defense and only
allowed 3 goals in 4 games, had multiple bangoo goals, and the least athletic
player on the team who had been working so hard on his skills did a double
scissors move that left the defender wondering what had happened.
Some other things that stand out to me as I reflect are
getting up at 4:00 AM to watch the Korea/Japan World Cup. Spending summer
afternoons with Graham Ramsey and my father watching coaching videos and
talking about the game, hearing an entire complex erupt with cheers when Donovan
scored the World Cup goal. These are just a few of my favorite memories however
what I enjoy the most about the beautiful game is all of the wonderful people I
have met and shared stories and laughs with.
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