Beyond the Pitch

After all the hubbub at the airport, I headed back to Woodbury to pick up my suit that was in for altering.  My wife and I were headed out to the Metro Magazine hosted party for David Beckham and the Galaxy that night in Downtown Minneapolis at a Asian fusion type bar called Temple. 

Initially, the Thunder couldn't get a ticket to the event for spouses, but that changed at the last minute and Abbie was able to accompany me.  With Emmri, our 13 month old baby girl at home though, we had to find a someone to come over and babysit.  My team manager, Super Wendy, had extended us an offer to come and watch Emmri at anytime, so we took her up on it.

Wendy came over at around 5:30PM, accompanied by 6 girls from the team - Soph, Macky, Bidi, Hannah, Nash, and Maddie.  Babysitters in training!  Nice. 

It's important for me to build these off the field relationships with my players.  It helps build a close, family feel among the players and me, and the strength of this relationship has been a factor in my past team successes as well as a contributor to the girls overall positive experience with the game and with me. 

It's kinda neat as the teams come and go through stages in my life.  My Woodbury team was with me during my engagement and wedding.  They were not only with me, they were very involved in both.

My current Bangu U14s are with me during Emmri's birth and the early years, my next team will like be with me through the babysitting years, the next might be Emmri's teammates. 

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The party and Temple was fun.  They had the LA Galaxy roped off in a back room area.  You should have seen all the girls trying to get Beckham's attention.  I've never seen anything liek it. 

The Galaxy players did come out and mingle with the mere mortals, and I found time to track David down.  I introduced myself, told him that I had helped coordinate the kids at the airport, and said I just wanted to thank him for taking the time to sign autographs and pose for pictures.  It meant the world to the kids there.  He said it was his pleasure and he hoped they enjoyed the game tomorrow.  I introduced him to my wife, whom I had forgotten about behind me until she kicked my heel, and that was that.  I'm sure he meets hundreds of people in every city he goes to and he won't remember me from Adam, but it was important to me that I got a chance to at least say how much his time meant to our players.  My wife hasn't washed her hand since.