A Soccer Spectating Record

Well, it's been try-out week for girls soccer at the high school. No, I have no more girls trying out, but, deep in my core I can feel it....like that feeling you get before school starts in the fall..a sort of yearning, anticipation kind of feeling. There's also something of a churning feeling going on during tryout week knowing your daughter is out there trying her hardest, pushing herself physically to the limit, trying out in sometimes harsh weather conditions. I automatically know this week because tryouts always coincide with 2 of my daughters' birthdays. Birthday Alley, as I call it, soccer tryouts. Always the same week. So this week, I noticed the weather each day (Monday....the first day, was gorgeous, very lucky for them) and wondered how the girls were doing....even though I had no one there. I imagined girls coming home and talking over the prospects for the team and season at dinner like we always used to do.

Truly, I'm going to miss soccer season. Nevermind, the bitter cold!, cold!, cold! and the harsh wind!, wind!, wind! of spring sports. It can be brutal. I guess I won't miss that part.....or I might even miss that a little....braving all that harshness. For 13 years my girls played Warwick Girls Soccer. And then they played club soccer before that. It's the first spring in a long time that we won't have our weeks revolve around soccer. Some parents might be grateful that they won't have to go to games any longer. But, I don't know, there's nothing better than standing outside on a beautiful day, feeling the early spring sun and maybe a gentle breeze (even though this may only comprise 10% of the games, none-the-less, it's worth waiting for), chatting with parents and watching those girls run up and down the field giving it their best shot. AND, for all this luxury, you're doing EXACTLY what you're supposed to be doing. No guilt about lollygagging there in the sun.

I'm sure I have a record for the number of soccer games attended in one week. I'm not talking about a tournament. I'm talking about full-length regulation games. At one point I had a daughter playing for the High School, one playing at the Middle School and one playing in the Lititz Youth League. The week before this record-breaking week had been a wash-out, so the games that were canceled because of rain were re-sceduled for this week. High school games are frequently played at night and so, just by the alignment of the stars, games that were played in the afternoon by the younger girls were followed by night games for the high school. So I think it went like this: 4 High School games, 3 Middle School games, and 2 Youth Soccer games. NINE games!! But wait! Just wait!! In order to be assured of having the record for watching-the-most-full-length-soccer-games-by-any-one-person-in-the-world-in-a-week, I went to Steve's game on Sunday....the men's Over 30 Ibuprophen League game. TEN!, 10!, TEN! full length soccer games in one week!! It was almost a full-time job! Yeah, I'm going to miss soccer a lot......really, I am.