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Andrew started playing soccer sometime around first grade. Middlebury, Indiana had a huge (to us) recreational soccer program. We signed him up and started an obsession which has lasted 15 years.

Andrew has played recreational, select, travel, middle school, high school, college, indoor and outdoor soccer. We have payed for shoes, gloves, jerseys, pads, registration fees, gasoline costs, a few motel rooms, soccer balls, sports drinks, fast food, and one or two other things (including a light fixture and eavetrough). During some years, he was playing year round.

He played well, but as a team player rather than a star. He had dreams of being David Beckham, and once in a game even bent a corner kick in for a goal. However, we have little worry of Andrew showing up on “60 Minutes” being interviewed like Beckham, an interview we watched sitting around playing Rummikub tonight. We encouraged but didn’t obsess, and Andrew played, but didn’t obsess.

But was it worth it?

That’s always the question for parents who spend time and money on a sport (or any other activity). We invest our child, our lives, our energy in this activity. And what is the return?

1. He is still playing soccer.
He’s in his third year of college. He got cut at the beginning of his senior year in high school (another post for another time, but just a hint - because he didn’t play, he met the love of his life). He played most of a season of college soccer, but quit right after the coach quit (wise on Andrew’s part). But he’s playing winter and summer now, for the love of the game and with more passion than ever.

2. He is working in a soccer store (doing their website and eBay as well as on the sales floor). The blending of his love of shoes and soccer and social media and web-based business is amazing.

3. His dad played indoor soccer for a year or two.
I coached when Andrew was in second grade…which exhausted my knowledge of the game. When he was in high school, some of us dads joined an over-30 team (though we would have qualified for over-40). I had my first bloody nose, my first dislocated jaw…and my first ever goal. Oh yeah, and my son cheered for me.

4. He has an ease around athletes and smart people and hurting people and struggling people.
Because soccer is a team sport, because soccer players are ignored by the American sports, because Andrew is a fairly well-rounded kid, he has broad interests and abilities. He’s not a star in any of them, but has great flexibility and adaptability.

After writing most of this post, I decided to ask Andrew. “What’s the best thing about soccer?” He grinned, a huge, cheesy grin, as he’s sitting on the sofa next to his mom. “To make people think that they’re not as good as they thought they were after playing against me,” he answered, showing that he still has that competitive urge. But then he captured the best possible part of the game: “everyone can be decent at anything. In football, linemen can’t be quarterbacks; in soccer, forwards can play defense and be decent at it.”

After all these years of playing and watching and freezing and sweating and spending, two things are true: Andrew and his mom sit on the sofa, and he grins about the game.

Yes, it was worth it.

————–

Andrew Swanson turned 21 in February 2008. This post is part of a series of reflections on 21 years of being a dad.

by Jon Swanson

[tags]parents, parenting, kids, children, soccer, obsession, focus, encouragement, sports, athletics, competition, competitor, fun, growth, learning, perspective, Rummikub, David Beckham[/tags]

Photo graciously provided by mhartford through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved