holliday

I've played soccer since the third grade. I think I was a defender then...
I hated wearing cleats and shinguards cuz I thought they 'felt funny.' I got yellow carded once for having diarhea of the mouth.
Legend has it that my grandfather played for the English league before coming to America. Which would explain why HE would always come to my games and my mother rarely did. She never came to our awards dinners at the end of season either. I always had to hijack a ride with a team mate...which always made me feel like crap.
I don't know that I was every any good back then. I was never chosen for the all-star team...but there was ONE girl who did...Miranda. She had legs like a gazelle...she beat all the boys at track too. I aspired to be her.

After my life taking a brief and exciting turn for the worst, involving lots of drugs and crime...and finding the reform school didn't HAVE soccer (although they had softball...and riots...and softball riots...but that's a story for another time)...I eventually cleaned my act up and went back to "real" school, if that's what boarding school can be called.

I read a study once about the psychological differences between girls who played sports growing up and girls who didn't. The study pointed out that many of the psychological differences between MEN and women can also be traced back to the things we all learn on the field...and those who don't.

Case and point...
My junior year in high school...I played forward then...
There was a girl named Keg a year ahead of me. For SOME reason, we just got along like oil and water. To this day I can't remember why. We didn't have words, we didn't throw down...we simply didn't get along, to the point where you'd not find us in the same room together...

However...Keg and I played soccer together. And no matter how much we despised each other off the field...ON the field, I wouldn't have wanted any half back to work behind me. ON the field we worked like a well oiled machine. We communicated, had mutual respect, and supported each other. But as soon as the endorphines wore off...we'd be back to ignoring each other.

Even wonder why men aren't as catty as women? This might be your answer...
Because boys growing up, play sports. They learn to put their personal feelings aside for the greater good.
Girls on the other hand...don't. And I think as we grow up we continue to see ourselves only as individuals...and other girls a threat to our one woman team.

Or maybe it was just a quirk in my personality? Who knows...

My senior year in high school, I was captain of our team. I played half-back then.
The thing about my school and sports is that, basically we were all forced to play them. We didn't have a regular "gym" program...we only had sports. So to take a team of girls who very well might have signed up for soccer because they didn't like their other options...and make them give a shit...might have been a miracle.

I don't know that our team was all that great...but we had our first winning season in six years under my leadership...and I think it just goes to show, that even a little low-self-esteem, so shy she wouldn't speak, kinda girl like I was...can have enough passion to inspire a team.

My last two years of college I played NCAA soccer. It was only division 3 mind you, but I was pretty proud of myself the day I signed my official papers.

My senior year I found myself in a pickle. The NCAA has rules stating that only full time students can qualify to play...and I was no longer a full time student (i didn't require that many credits). So I asked my mother if we could throw in an extra class...some fun little elective I'd not only enjoy, but would get me to qualify. The cost of which would have been about $4,500.

She refused. In fact she didn't just refuse, she made snarky comments about how I had just inherited some money and if I wanted to play soccer that much why didn't I just pay for it MYSELF. Not surprisingly, I agreed to pay for it myself. I figured that if my dreams of continuing to play NCAA soccer were worth 5k...that's what I'd pay.

But first I went and spoke to the head of the sports department and together we found there's a loophole in the rules for seniors who no longer have enough credits required to be full time.

So in the end, I got to play, I kept my 5k, and I didn't speak to my mother for nearly a year.

That season was plagued with injuries for me...but like any good jock, I played on, taping my ankles, knees, wrists, whatever, back together every week for games...

The final game of my NCAA career...we'd not had a great season. I remember at half-time Coach telling us that even if we won, we ourselves wouldn't move forward to finals...BUT what we COULD do was win the game and take our opposition down with us...

I remember standing on the field waiting for the second half whistle to blow...and instead of feeling all tense-like about this being the last game of my college career and every moment counted...I felt as though nothing mattered anymore. I felt free to do whatever I wanted...I had nothing more to strive for but to play a good second half...

And when the whistle blew...I played the best game of my entire life. I played 'as if' I were good...is what I told myself... I went for the head balls I normally wouldn't have... I shot on goal... I ran faster... And when the game was over (i made an assist, but not a goal)...my teammates asked me, "Where have you BEEN all season?!" And for one, very clear moment, I realized that all my life I'd never played the level of ball I could have, simply because I didn't BELIEVE I could...

After the season ended...I was in the best shape of my life. I'd finally quit smoking...I was running regularly...and after realizing how I'd been holding myself back...I decided to instead challenge myself.

I said, "Self, one day...yes, ONE day...you're going to run a marathon. Not because you can...not because you want to...not for the medal, or the sweat or the tears...but because it's the most fucking ridiculous thing to imagine."

Six months later...I ran one.
Plagued with 'compartment syndrome,' a potentially serious and career ending injury, my training was somewhat minimal. Before standing on the starting line in Anchorage, Alaska...I'd never run more than 14 miles at a stretch. Those last 12+ miles...came straight from my gut. Somewhere around mile 22, I was introduced to my true self for the first time...and I've never been the same.

After graduating college, I moved back to NY to get my masters. NYU had a soccer team, but not for graduate students. Besides which, the compartment syndrome meant that most likely, I'd never run again.

I eventually found an Irish club team that played out in the Bronx and I joined up with them.
I wasn't in great shape anymore...but twice a week I'd take the train out there...scrimage with the boys straight off the boat, and down pints with them all at the pub that sponsored us when we were done.
I'm sure I wasn't playing all that well...but it was some of the happiest ball I've ever played.

Then...on Tuesday morning, Sept. 11th...two planes crashed into the WTC...and I've not played soccer since.
I can't tell you exactly WHY... I suppose I COULD have just gotten on the train and headed out to the Bronx same as always...but life no longer WAS 'same as always' then.

But it was then that soccer became more of a lifeline for me than ever.

A few weeks later, when I'd finally found a computer with working internet (because if you don't know, all of our cable, phone lines, and interent went down with the towers)...I found an email from The Empire Support Club (ESC)...those fucking drunk soccer hooligans I'd been going to games with for 5 years... We were inbetween seasons then, but with hundreds of members to track down...they'd started a 'roll call.' Slowly, members would get in touch, tell the tale of where they were and what happened...and that thankfully, in the end, we were all safe and accounted for.

Some months later we had our home opener. I braved the Port Authority, now riddled with army dudes with guns...and got on the bus headed for Jersey. It wasn't the FIRST time I'd left the city...but it was the first time I'd ever seen the new city skyline...with the lights and smoke still billowing up from downtown. I remember crying quietly in my seat...and I know for sure I wasn't the only one.

For me, someone who had continuously asked herself how to go on...to stand in section 16A of the Giants Stadium parking lot with my boys...same as we had for years...it was comforting...it proved to me that even though I struggled ever day with the question of 'how' the answer was, somehow we were all doing it.

I stood there getting plastered with the boys as if nothing had happened, even though everything had changed.

World Cup 2002 nearly killed me. The games were in Korea that year, making the games at 2, 4, and 6am.
I'd come home from work, take benedryl...sleep a few hours..get up...meet a friend at the pub, watch the game...migrate to another pub, watch the other game....migrate to ANOTHER pub, watch the last game...and finally stumble into work.

The Americans were playing well that year and everyone was in a frenzy. I'd spend hours pouring over schedules, statistics, injury reports, etc with anyone who would listen.

My dear friend (and coworker at the time) NL would clock me into work the days the games went into overtime and have a cold red bull waiting for me. True, I COULD have watched the games alone at home...or taped them and gotten some sleep...but if you know anything about soccer, it's that it's meant to be watched with strangers and beer...and that's how we did it.

World Cup 2006...
So much in my life has changed over the past four years. I have a new career and live clear across the country. I've lost a lot and learned a lot...

But strolling into the one fucking pub in this god forsaken middle of nowhere california 'city' I live in...to find standing room only at 6 bloody am to watch the England game...you can't help but see, that some things NEVER change. And with every text message I got from my fellow hooligans back east...I couldn't help but see that friends are never all that far away.

Four years from now...I don't know where I'll be for certain. I can't say what will happen or how my life may change. But I know one thing for sure...I'll find a pub that shows the games...and there I'll find strangers and beer, exactly the way it's supposed to be.