"Soccer was invented by European ladies to play while their men did the dishes." -Hank Hill, King of the Hill

A picture of Chena Lake. Frozen. This was from about three weeks ago. I'm still figuring out what we can do with all this ice. Perhaps we can carve it and sell it to tourists. I suggest we cool beer with it.

Tonight was the night that The Boy became an athlete.

If you can call it that. It was his first soccer game. I took pictures, you can bet, but I’m not going to print them. The jerseys are distinctive, and the exploits of the innocent shouldn’t be tarnished by what I’m about to reveal.

Let me rewind. Last year we were out driving and drove by a soccer field where a bunch of kids were playing. The Boy saw the activity, and went haywire. “I WANT TO GO THERE.” He yelled a bit. He was frantic in the back of the car, like a caged wolverine surrounded by hunks of filet mignon. I think that wolverines are carnivorous, but if they aren’t, substitute in the above metaphor what a caged wolverine might find tasty. Beer?

Anyhow, when your kid goes nuts like that you feel like a horrid parent. It was too late to sign him up for soccer at that point, so I just drove on by, attempting to convince The Boy that the running and laughing kids on the soccer field were actually screaming in terror as they ran from invisible monsters that wanted to eat them. I was apparently not convincing. I was vaguely disappointed that they had soccer in Fairbanks. I had been hoping for team wood gathering.

This year the soccer signups came ‘round and we missed them again. Missing the signup date, however, just means you have to pay extra to sign your kid up, like a late credit card fee on kid fun. We signed him up anyway, and they haven’t charged interest yet. Maybe they only charge interest if he has too much fun.

The Boy practiced, and was ready for the big game. We made it to the field on time. I saw his opposition, standing at the ready, bright little four and five year old soccer storm troopers, standing in a straight line, attentive at every utterance that came from their coach. When they were warming up, they took turns kicking the ball at nearly the speed of sound into the junior-size nets from 375 yards. This wasn’t a team of five-year-olds. This was a well-oiled soccer machine.

Our team looked like attention-deficit-disorder stricken rodeo clowns. They were primarily engaged in goofing, laughing, and ignoring their coach. The Boy tried to kiss a teammate during warm-ups. At this point I should mention it's a co-ed team, and his teammate was a girl.

I thought wistfully that maybe there was still hope when the game began. There were eight kids on each side, and the game was supposed to be a four-on-four competition. The Boy wasn’t on the field to start the game, the coach (wisely I thought) keeping him in reserve so his blinding speed could tear through the opponents as they wore down.

The opening whistle sounded, and the play was on! It must have been exciting, because The Boy immediately left the sideline and began playing. Note that the coach hadn’t put him in – he’d self-selected. For a while, it was five-on-four, an unorganized and unsanctioned soccer power play. It didn’t matter, since the opposing team scored short-handed. The coach finally noticed his numerical superiority, did a quick count and pulled another kid out. The Boy’s determination to play was rewarded by . . . more playing time.

During the course of the game, The Boy:

• put himself in the game,
• attempted to stop the referee from running the game by bear-hugging his thigh,
• attempted to push his coach over,
• led a sideline insurrection by taking a ball and organizing a sideline game that bled over into the real game (stopping play), and,
• ignored entirely the lines demarking the sides of the field, continuing to play until a fence stopped him.

The Mrs. reported that a grumpy soccer-nazi next to us was criticizing the play on the field. The play of four and five year olds. I’m thinking this was the dad of the little Beckham on the field that made the goal and then did the Riverdance for three minutes in celebration.

Since this was soccer, and not a real sport, I’m proud that The Boy was bored as hell and decided to play it his own way. That’s how rugby started – an American got bored and picked up the ball and knocked a few European guys out of the way. Soccer is boring if it isn’t your kid playing. I’m glad The Boy played. I’m glad he had fun. But, jeez, soccer dad, soccer is still just soccer.

It’s not like it’s football.