It would be unfair to say I wanted it more, but I sure wanted it a lot.  I wanted them to win.  For me it wasn’t about titles and moving on, but because I knew how much he wanted it.  I knew how hard he had worked.  I knew this had been his focus for so long.  His goal.  His team’s goal.  I knew every player on that team had envisioned this game time and time again over the past year, and I also know it didn’t end with them going into overtime and losing in a PK shootout.  I knew it felt like they had lost so much more than just a game, that so much had been taken away.  But as watched them gather together after the game, in a circle with their arms wrapped around each other, I knew my son would be okay.  I knew his teammates would be also. Because what I could see, what I knew even more was that the game had prepared them for moments like this.  The game had given them everything they would need.

The game had given them strength.  Physically of course, but more than that.  Mental and emotional strength.  Crazy determination and perseverance.  Focus.  Fortitude.  Resilience.  You could see it each time they got knocked down and each time they rose again.  I don’t know the path every player took to get to that field that day, but I knew my son’s journey.  He had known adversity from the beginning.  His first club coach told him he would never be good enough to play at the top level.  His next coach built him up only to pull what he had promised him.  Again told he wasn’t good enough.  Too often a roller coaster.  Up and starting and valued and then benched and blamed and belittled.  Battling through injuries.  Most recently one that sidelined him a year and unable to walk for eight months.  And yet, he never stopped believing.  Never.  He learned his belief in his own abilities was far greater than any disbelief anyone had ever shown him.  He learned loses and disappointment can be unexpected steps to far greater destinations.  He learned hard work pays off and that goals can be reached.

The game has given them a voice.  The ability to communicate.  The ability to put eleven totally different individuals with different personalities and experiences and opinions on a single field who can almost instantaneously work together as one.  Who learn to settle conflict.  Discovering that sometimes you take but more often you give and that sometimes you talk but more often you should listen.  Finding out that my way isn’t always the right way or the only way.  That’s an important one.  Who learn to speak out.  Advocate and question.  Make suggestions and give advice.  Who learn to stay quiet.  Accept and Trust.  Believe in others.  Rely on others.  These are young men who can lead but also are starting to see sometimes the best leaders are the ones who can also follow.  They are learning the power of words.  I see it every game.  I hear it every game.  They know it’s about rising up together.  It’s about building up and not tearing down.  It’s about knowing that as rough as this game can get, that at the end of it all sometimes kindness and compassion are the strongest things they have to offer.

The game has given them a village.  Those boys standing in that circle with their arms around each other.  Those coaches anchoring them down.  Every single parent on those sidelines.  What I want my son to feel more than anything is that.  Those are his people.  They build him up.  Encourage him.  Sometimes pick him up.  Sometimes shut him up – we’re working on that!!!   I hear them say his name.  Good shot.  Great ball.  Amazing.  Keep trying.  You’ll get it next time.  You’re okay.  I hear it all.  I know he does too.  These boys are friends.  Some as close as brothers.  Family.  Today it’s about games and tournaments and teenage boy stuff.  But someday it’s going to be about being the loudest fans in the stands as one them plays for a college title.  It’s going to be about dancing at each others weddings.  It’s going to be about not seeing someone for years but instantly falling into step the moment they are together again.  It’s going to be about needing help and knowing you will always have this village to call on.  And when you call they will come.  Quickly and without judgement.  With grace and understanding.  With love.  Family does that.  They don’t understand all of that yet, but I do and I know they will.

This game has given them perspective.  Or at least it’s staring to.  It’s an amazing game.  It’s fast and physical and there is a real beauty when it’s executed the way it should be.  It’s a game I knew nothing about but have grown to love. It’s a game I know my son loves to his very core, but it’s just a game.  Someday he will see those jokes before practice and those nights roaming the hotel halls and all those crazy group chats are the memories that settle in his heart.  Someday he will look back and see it wasn’t winning or championships or scholarships that were the prize, but the fun that was had.  The laughter and the smiles.  The endless pranks and the nicknames.  The practices and the downtime and everything in between those big games.  That was what mattered.  That was the why all along.  Someday he will look back and realize just how lucky he was to have found himself in a place with that much goodness – all those people – in his corner.  Believing in him.  Someday he will realize the game made him a good soccer player, but more importantly that it made him a really, really good human being.  Someday he too will realize just how much the game gave him.

As this chapter enters its final year, I find myself thankful for this game and for all of those the game brought into the lives of my son and my family.  To the first coach who taught him just how much fun it is to “Crush” someone and to the wild Irishman who did things a little differently than was directed.  To the loud but loving coach who took a mid-year chance on this kid who came to him “dancing” on the ball and to the one who brought us to the family he finally found.  Your belief in him changed the course of everything!  And of course to the ones who stand next to him now.  I can think of no one better to guide him into his next chapter.  To the countless parents and teammates we now call friends.  To the ones that feel like family.  You will always have our gratitude, our appreciation, and our love.