Best Friends 'Til We're Not
People usually like me until they don't
Throughout my years involved with this sport, one thing has become crystal clear... make that two things. First, my car keys are ALWAYS in the last pocket I check, and second, people usually like me until they don't. Though I have come to this realization relatively late in the game and initially wanted to pen some thoughts based on current coaching experience, when I reflect back upon my youth soccer days I find numerous other instances of the same fact.
Back in 1982, I was a scrawny, pre pubescent 11 year old playing for the Rochester Ringers U12 traveling team. I think the name "Ringers" came from the Northerwestern Bell company in town who had donated a few dollars to the Rochester Youth Soccer Association (RYSA). We sported purple terrycloth shorts and purple mesh jerseys. It was sweet. My dad, one of the pioneers of soccer in the Rochester area, was our coach.
Soccer was still the relatively new game in town, and to quote Mr. Miller, my junior high school gym teacher and the school's football coach, the sport that only "sissy-boys-who-didn't-want-to-get-tackled" played. One of my best friends at that time was a boy named Kurt Beartsch. We always pronounced the name "Barch", only to find out about a decade and a half later that it was really pronounced "Ber-itch". Anyway, we hung out together quite a bit growing up (I think he had a crush on my sister Lilian who was a year younger than me). He was always a little unstable and angry, don't know why, but we got along great. We'd go to movies, go down to the YMCA and play, have sleep overs, etc. Kurt's dad was assistant coach to my dad for many years, and Kurt's mom was the loud, crazy, and obnoxious soccer mom on the sidelines, known for kicking her leg spasmodically whenever Kurt was about to kick a ball, knocking over a fair share of folding chairs over the years. You all know the one I'm talking about.
In 1986, soccer was introduced to our high schools. Me and most of my fellow Rochester Ringers (now called the Rochester Arrows) were entering our 10th grade years in our respective high schools, so the timing of this could not have been better for us. At that time, there were two public high school in the city, Rochester Mayo (were I, along with 2 or 3 other Arrows went) and Rochester John Marshall (where Kurt and 4 or 5 other Arrows went). Since none of the high school teachers had any clue about the rules of the game, let alone how to coach it, my dad volunteered to coach.
The Mayo/JM rivalry was what you would expect from high school students as passions and school spirit usually ran deep in a town with not much to do except go to movies, cruise up and down Broadway, toilet paper houses, or go tip over some cows. You could usually count on raw eggs being launched from bleacher section to bleacher section at Mayo/JM football games, keyed cars in the parking lot at Mayo/JM basketball games, and at least a handful of fights at the Mayo/JM hockey games (some of these fights actually happened on the ice).
My senior year, we hosted the Mayo/JM soccer game at Mayo. As with nearly every other Mayo/JM soccer game played in my high school days, the game was very close. I remember the game well for a number of reasons. The first and foremost reason was that I remember glancing down our supporter's sideline and noticing that it was almost a Who's Who of the Popular Group of seniors (Matt Nesset, the jock captain of the football and basketball teams, Gaye Sterioff and a number of other "mint" girls, and Shawn Schneider, the cool long-hair-laid-back-Greatful-Dead-listening-host-keg-parties-out-in-the-woods-because-they-had-older-brothers-or-sisters-who-would-buy-beer-for-them guy, to name a few). I remember thinking "Wow, I hope my hair looks OK when I run." I think my old Dungeon & Dragon's buddies were there as well, but probably on the JM side of the field in fear of getting beat up by their Mayo school mates.
With only a few minutes left on the clock, I received a square pass at the top of the JM penalty box and was absolutely steam rolled by something. It turned out to be Kurt, and the ref (Something Odea) awarded us with a direct free kick about 20 yards from goal, on the right-hand side of the "D". I had actually had a lot of good luck with set pieces that year and stepped up to take the kick. My good fortune held and I ended up curling a low shot around the right side of the wall (as I was facing it) and into the bottom corner of the net. I think it helped that I was still seeing stars from Kurt's tackle and that I was seeing three goals in front of me when I took the kick. I just aimed for the middle one and the shot happened to go in. I would later watch the video of this free kick on tape to see the sidelines erupt with cheers. Matt high-fiving the other jocks, Gaye jumping up and down hugging the other mint girls, and Shawn's beer nearly overflowing and extinguishing his dubbie and he raised his hands in victory.
Needless to say I was mauled by my ecstatic teammates and didn't see Kurt verbally abuse Odea and get red-carded immediately after the free kick. I would later find out that he left the field accusing me of taking a dive, and drove out of the parking lot with loud chants of "Odea is dead!". I pretty sure it was Kurt chanting, though it may have been his mom.
The next day as I decided that I deserved to skip my 6th hour World History class (Mr. Galzer was a true bore) and head to Machine Shed, the video arcade at Apache Mall. I exited the school at Door 6 (we had a round school with 6 entries/exits) and began walking to my car. There weren't many people around at all as most of the students didn't score the winning goal the night before and didn't deserve to be out of school this early. I heard the squeal of tires and saw a rusted out Dodge Charger accelerate towards me. I was still near the school walking on a cement-covered rotunda area, not yet in the parking lot. To my amazement, the car jumped the curve, came straight for me, and veered off at the last instant. The eyes looking back at me over that steering wheel were Kurt's.
About a week later, we returned from a soccer game in Rosemount. As the bus was pulling into our school parking lot, I noticed that my powder-blue Ford Escort mini-station wagon had a bit of a lean to her. As I got off the bus, I saw that both passenger side tires were flat... real flat. Upon closer inspection, it was clear that the tires had been slashed. When the cops showed up they asked me if there was anyone who I thought might do this to me. I mentioned that maybe this guy named Kurt might have something against me, though I didn't mention the incident a week earlier. The cops apparently went over to Kurt's house to question him, and his parent's called my parents, yelling at them for sending the cops over and claiming their little Kurt didn't have a violent bone in his body and would never do such a thing. Nothing much happened after that.
In a true show of compassion, my dad invited Kurt to play with our group the following summer, our last (U19) season of organized youth soccer. I don't remember much from that season except that it was always a wee bit awkward between Kurt and I, and also that he ended up quitting mid-season for some reason. Last I heard about him was a few years later when someone saw him in a sports store; pierced, tattooed, apparently just out of prison, married (or maybe divorced) with a kid or two.
That was my first real experience with "love me then hate me" in the soccer world. Today, it occurs on a more frequent basis. I experienced it on a "large" scale with the Thunder (with whom I had spent the better part of a decade playing and working for) as I became one of their Top 10 Most Wanted after I left the organization to start my own competing camp business after retiring from playing and not feeling justly compensated for continuing to run their camp program. Now, as they recently bought out my camp business and I am currently working with them to help develop their youth programs, they once again love me. I also experienced it with the Woodbury Soccer Club as they loved me for four years, then hated me after I resigned because I started the Bangu Soccer Academy program in their backyard and am currently stealing all their best players.
I call these "large" scale love/hates because they involve multiple groups of haters. In reality, I could care less about these as I'm doing what I believe is in the best interest of a number of young players in the area. What kills me is the "smaller" scale love/hates, the ones that happen every year after tryouts when kids don't make certain team that they want to play with. And as it usually happens, the more the love, the more the hate. I've personally coached kids for years, felt a very close friendship with both the player and the family, only to then be shunned by both player and parent after the player was no longer on the roster after the evaluation/tryout. I'm sure this experience is not unique to myself and that it happens in soccer clubs and to coaches all over the world. No matter how much time you devote to a young player to help their development, it is rare that there is any thanks down the road if you do something that doesn't jive with that player's (or their parents') desires. Wayne Harrison, Coaching Director for the Eden Prairie Soccer Club here in MN once told me, and I censor this quote, "Those you help most crap on you from the highest height." Well said my friend, well said.