The return of our community cleat exchange signals the beginning of the youth soccer season here. My friend Ed and I have doing this for 15 years. About 200 families found a free pair of shoes during the three-hour session. As I have noted before, Ed and I get to meet the new generation of soccer stars, and there is a warm and communal feeling to the whole thing.
I am kind of interested where people of my general age (like Paul) learned soccer. It was not offered in PE class nor as a team sport in my Virginia high school, and no one I knew played it. Of course back then, there were fewer community organized sports in general. Does soccer have a long history in NE?
ReplyDeletenonlocal
I learned the basics by taking courses in how to coach it so I could coach my daughter's team when she started in first grade -- If you can't do, teach! Over the years I took more and more advanced coaching courses. Then, when my daughter was 12, I said, this game looks like fun, and I started playing with friends, especially ones who were better than I. Well, truthfully, they were all better than I. That was 15 years ago, and now most of them are better than I.
ReplyDeleteWhat's that saying; old age and treachery beats youth and inexperience every time? Or something like that. Interesting you learned as an adult; my sense is that it was not a common high school sport in the 60's. Too busy being hippies, maybe. (:
ReplyDeletenonlocal