Early Years
A synopses of my obsession to be better than good… (skim if you’d like, or be amused)
Lets take for starters my obsession with sports. I believe it begins with soccer, or at least from what I can remember it does. I always loved playing soccer and although I gave it up as of freashman year in high school I have always wondered how good I could have been. Bunchie ball is what I’ve been told it should be called, U-8 soccer is where it begins. This means the to be in the league you must be under the age of 8. If anyone has seen this spectacle its quite amusing. Who really knows what they’re doing? Apparently I thought I was good, or at least thats what my mother says. I was one of those who you could call a Gym class bully for a while. No matter where the ball was, so was I. But luckily I had an understanding coach who taught me to stay in a position and guard a portion of the field. This was fun, but wasn’t getting me where I wanted to go.
I needed to try out for the select team in town, the Milwaukee Kickers. Long story short, I wasn’t A-team material, but I did make a decent team and played for a while with them. Once the season was over I needed something else, baseball was my target. However, I didn’t know the rules all that well, haven’t been one for rules my whole life, and I tended to make mistakes. Now I don’t have any evidence but I think I was the butt of a few jokes here and there, plus they made me play right field which we know who plays right field in elementary school. Was I really that bad? Turns out I was one of the faster ones on the team and they let me run the bases when I got on (and yes usually by getting hit by a pitch). As of that season the jury was out on whether I really liked baseball. More later.
2nd grade, I meet and become friends with a kid named Ian Carl, enter obsession number 2. Football. Ian loved to play running back and being from Ohio loved his Bengals and Icky Woods. Great but who was I going to be. Somehow I became infatuated with Joe Montana and from then on would be the one who handed off to Icky Woods. We played football, watched football, and read trading cards with any free time we had. Recess was a time where all we did was pick teams play a 10 minute game and talk about the touchdowns everyday. Unfortunately Ians father must have been in the military or something cause he left at the end of the year. Fortunately his influence would leave a lasting mark.
3rd grade comes, we move to the boondocks of southeastern Wisconsin,… Dealfield. I find out later it only takes about 25 minutes to drive to the lake front but to a 10 year old its forever. So here I am, Wales Elementary no one knows me, although I did roll in with some Nike Airs which I found out later one me some major brownie points with a lot of kids.
Soccer tryouts for the laser select team was in a few weeks and that was where I would make my mark. Well, made the team and would begin a long and controversial career as a sweeper and right defense man. I choose to become sweeper because he/she got to wander the field and stop anyone from reaching the goalie, right or left side. Later on I would switch back and forth between this and right defensman. I mentioned controversial because as I have eluded to I am kind of an intense person, and have a bit of a temper. Over the years I have been able to control it for the most part but pre-sophomore year in highschool anything that would erk me would set it off.
Soccer went on for a few years solo, I also dabbled in baseball here and there but mostly soccer soccer soccer. Our team traveled all over the state playing in many tournaments against some of the best teams.