January 25, 2019: Travel soccer

I remember when I told a family friend that Gaby had earned a spot on a very competitive travel soccer club. The friend cautioned me as to the time, expense and general hassle of trying to keep up withe demands of competitive soccer clubs. I had no experience with this. As a youth, I had played Little League baseball. I usually biked to practice and to games. With so many kids, I don't think that my mother ever saw me play and with his job, it was rare for my dad to be there either.

Ten years later, I look back with great fondness for those days as a soccer dad. And today, it brings me great joy to see how Gaby and her cohort have matured and how they benefitted from the skills, the work, the competitiveness, and the camaraderie of those years playing together, through heat and cold, through baking sun and hurricane-like rains.

Columbus Tournament, Cape May