Offsides

It’s that time of the year when I spend my time driving from soccer practice to soccer practice and soccer game to soccer game, even more than usual. My youngest daughter plays soccer all year round. My oldest daughter played lacrosse in the spring and summer and has just started back up with soccer.

Both soccer and lacrosse are great games, although I understand soccer a bit better since I played on an intramural team in college and have been watching my kids and husband play for the last 12 years. (I find myself thinking about my boys and all of their soccer games and feeling a little sad that they’re done.)

It’s a little embarrassing to admit that after so many soccer games, I can still be confused by offsides though. I watched my second son, when he was refereeing, patiently explain offsides to the coach of a third-grade team. (That’s the age they start calling offsides.) I felt for the coach.

Soccer is a great metaphor for life, more so than some of those “high” scoring games like basketball and football. (I grew up on football, but I’ve converted.) (I grew up on basketball, too, and missed it for along time. Not so much anymore though.)

With soccer you have to keep working the ball up and down the field, working to find a way to get to the goal. Over and over. Up and down. Back and forth, with no instant gratification except for your own skill and working with your teammates. Finally a path between defenders opens. The ball might go in or it might not. Then it’s back at it, over and over. That’s the way life is. You have to keep working at it even if you have to wait and wait and wait to meet your goal.

I’ve heard that soccer is the only sport where everyone cheers even when no scores. It’s the joy of the game, the shot taken, the lesson learned by the near miss, the hope of a goal next time down the field. That’s the way life is, along with a few hard-to-follow rules like offsides.