Early Years Part um, Soccer

My goodness.  I don't know to what age I was supposed to go with this.  I guess I should look up moms instructions and dial things in.  I do know that I am supposed to have another set of years to her on Sunday night and I am not yet done with this assignment from last week.  Perhaps I am overkilling it.  Oh well, it is my own history too so we'll make it work. 

Soccer.  Love this sport.  I started playing when we lived in Carson and then continued to play when we moved to Sandy.  Actually there was a season in there when I played on a team over in the Cottonwood area.  I was on Jims team and was one of the younger players.  I was stuck in defense which was all I can remember playing in Carson City.  All was good in my soccer career until that fateful day in practice when I stood my ground as a defender only to take the ball right to the face.  I was seeing stars and my face hurt quite a bit.  I remember the rest of my soccer career I would not look straight on at a ball being kicked.  I would turn my head at the sign of a big kick coming at me.  Not my favorite part of the game.  I did love the rest of it though.  Eventually I moved up from defense and enjoyed a little more offensive action though I played just about any position on the field including goalie - though I didn't turn my head as the goalie.  Soccer was my favorite sport. I could play just about anything and most things I could play well.  Basketball is not one of those things and is definitely not one of my favorite sports.  I was pretty good at Soccer. 

For a few years while living in Sandy I played in two different leagues at the same time.  One was AYSO and the other was a competition league.  I loved them both.  Somedays we had games  that overlapped a bit. Dad and I would leave the competition game and drive across town to the AYSO game.  I would change clothes in the car and he would do everything he could to embarrass me.  He would honk the horn, yell out the window "We got a naked kid back here".  I was so embarrassed.  It was brutal.  Then we would get to the game and I would run on to the field with cheers from my team roaring, well, at least in my mind it was roaring.  All was well.