The tryout

I watched through the chain link fence that separated the field from the parking lot. Out on the field, my son was the only one standing. In front of him, a bunch of other players sat cross-legged listening to the coach. I pressed my ear to the fence trying to hear what was being said but was too far away to make out the words.

It was cut day. Some of those kids had made the team. Some hadn’t.

My son was on the bubble.

That conversation was either going to make his summer or ruin it.

And all I could do was watch from afar and try to read his face for emotion.

---

That was in August.

A year earlier, my son had decided he was done with soccer. His heart wasn’t in it anymore. I understood. His friends had become a bigger priority in his life. His team was splintering. They were a great group of kids but some were headed off to high school while the remainder weren’t sure they’d even have a team. Even if he had continued playing, it wouldn’t be the same.

He was ready to let it go.

Me? Not so much. I had loved watching him play; loved soccer Saturdays; loved the the rides home after the game win or lose. I had loved being a Soccer Dad.

I had been a referee, a manager, a coach. I had been the team photographer. I had been on the sidelines and in the stands; at the practices and the games. I had loved it all.

Above all, what I loved was watching my son play. That is what I loved. I loved watching my son play the game he loved with all of its triumphs and heartbreaks.

I would miss that. I understood though and the decision was his to make.

So, at his final game, I took pictures throughout and then made sure to be positioned where I would be in the right place to capture him as he walked off the field for the final time.

That is what I do. I capture moments. Transitions… achievements… milestones... beginnings and ends. I record them all with a wistful sentimentality. And then I treasure the pictures no matter how good or bad because they are more touchstones than images. They serve to bring back memories I happily remember in a richer detail than a picture ever could capture.

And with that, my son’s playing days were over.

When summer turned to fall, I thought he might miss playing and change his mind. He didn’t.

Then spring rolled around and out of the blue he said “Dad, I think I want to play soccer again. I think I want to try out for the high school team.”

I was onboard but making the team would be a tall order. He would be trying out after a year layoff. The competition had gotten bigger, faster, better while his game had been gathering rust.

He was driven though and I was fully supportive so from April on, there was little he did more than practice.

I hired a trainer and then a second. They worked him out a day or two a week. He practiced on his own rain or shine. He hit the gym and got stronger, faster.

Then summer rolled around and the high school began running optional practices. Three days a week at 7:00 a.m.. He passed on vacations; turned down taking a road trip with me; gave up chances to just hang out with his friends.

He was locked in.

Practices ran until mid-August. Tryouts were a three-day affair scheduled for the last week of August. Between them was an open week. When practices finished, I saw it as an opportunity. Maybe we could squeeze in a quick trip. So I quickly scouted around for potential events to turn into mini-adventures.

There was a state fair in West Virginia. It was about an 8-hour drive. We could make a four- or five-night roadtrip of it. It would be rushed and less exciting than our prior roadtrip but it would be a trip together.

Floated it by my son.

He was not onboard.

“Dad, I just want to be lowkey this week before tryouts next week…”.

The kid had been working his ass off for months and just wanted to stay focused and see it through.

My son is very much my child and yet he is also so very much his own person. We are alike in some ways and yet, he is different in others that I sort of marvel at as traits unique to him that speak to who he is more than how he was parented. There is something special about seeing your child exceed you…

So, we’d miss the state fair. We still had a free week.

Backing up for a minute though…

When I was his age, I took up golf one summer. Decided I wanted to try out for the high school team. My dad bought me a set of used clubs and ordered golf magazines and took me to the driving range. Over the two weeks we were away from the city, he took me out to real courses and drove the cart while I played.

It was support of a certain kind. He was supporting me wanting to play. It was definitely that.

It was support.

But there was a bit of a subtext to it. He was doing something FOR me rather than WITH me. There was an air of “I am doing this FOR YOU.” as if it were the selflessness and sacrifice of putting yourself out so your child can gain.

I would have rather hit golf balls WITH him. I would have rather played WITH him. I asked. He said no. And whenever I asked again, the answer was the same. He would drive and pay and sit on a bench or in the cart FOR ME.

But he wouldn’t do any of it WITH ME because that would have diluted the self-martyring of taking your kid to play a game even though you don’t enjoy it yourself… The not participating is what made it so very selfless.

That was the subtext.

He would take us to a water park but not go on the slides with us. He’d take me to an arcade but wouldn’t play. He’d take my sister and I to a lake but not swim.

And all of this was understood well enough as just the nature of our entire relationship for me to not expect more or different or even know that more or different could exist in a father-son relationship.

It wasn’t until I was a father myself and could hold up what I wanted for my son against what I had gotten from mine that I understood why all of the above felt somehow hollow as a kid:

There is a difference between being present and merely being in attendance.

My father was in attendance.

He took me to things. He didn’t engage in them.

I wanted my son to grow up with a parent who wasn’t just in attendance. I wanted him to grow up with a parent who was present and engaged because they wanted that FOR THEMSELVES TOO… not because they were selflessly bestowing a gift which indebted their kid to be thankful for their sacrifice.

I wanted him to be able to get into the car after a game and say “Dad, did you see when…” knowing that I would have indeed seen because I had been watching. Because I always watched. Because I wanted to. Because it made me happy.

So, when his off week before tryouts rolled around and he wasn’t up for going away, I put some thought into what we could do that week. I put thought into what *we* - the two of us - could do that would be in line with what he cared about - staying focused on tryouts - while also being new and fun and an experience.

I made a list and did research and then hatched a plan.

I found a sports nutritionist to coach us on fueling for competition. I found a “stretching studio” to give him advice on warm ups and cool downs. I got the yoga instructor from the gym to do a private session with the two of us ending with a visualization exercise like top athletes do before an event. I got him a sports massage. And between those daily activities, we cooked together and went swimming and got some sun.

It was a fun week. I spent the money I would have spent on the trip to the West Virginia State Fair because what mattered to me was that he knew I was along for the ride with him not just the guy driving. I was present not just in attendance.

Then, tryouts rolled around.

We had been told to expect that about 35 kids would show up to compete for 20-25 spots.

The first day, there were 50.

About 15 of them arrived wearing the practice jerseys of the private program the coach ran outside of the school system.

Not good.

Then that entire first day’s tryout focused on the kind of drills that are hardest if you are coming off a layoff.

This was all setting up badly for my son.

By the end of Day 1, we were starting to face the possibility that the odds of him making the team were much worse than we had thought.

It was now looking like a longshot.

Day 2 was slightly better.

But then, as the session ended, the coach called over about fifteen kids and told them they were “on the bubble” and needed to have a good final day to survive the cut.

My son was one of those kids.

He wanted to make the team so damn bad and now he was facing an uphill battle with no margin for error.

And then Day 3 rolled around and he just… crushed it. Dug down deep. Played his ass off. He was locked in and tenacious. He was unbowed by how nervous he was and how damn bad he wanted it. He was fearless. I was so proud of him and so happy FOR him.

At the end of that final day, the coach gathered up the kids who were on the bubble. All sat. My son stood awaiting his fate.

And then the coach read off a list of names and all of the kids got up and gathered up their stuff. There were hugs and high fives among kids saying goodbye for the week to friends who had made it and friends who hadn’t.

My son was unreadable. Expressionless. It wasn’t until he got in the car with me blue from holding my breath that he smiled for the first time.

He had made the cut. He hadn’t wanted to make the kids who hadn’t made the cut feel worse by celebrating.

He had made the cut!

But…

There was a “but…”.

The coach had told the kids who had been on the bubble but survived the cut that there would be two more days of tryouts and then more cuts.

Two days later, the kids were back in the same position. Sitting down as the coach read off a list of names of kids who hadn’t made it.

This time, I snuck between cars and around to a place where I could hear the names being read out.

My son’s was the second to last one called.

He had been cut.

I was crushed for him.

He got in the car. I said “I’m sorry…” and he replied “Let’s just go…” and that was that.

And then, on the ride home, he said something that just broke my heart.

He said “Dad, I feel like wasted everyone’s time and money.”

Oof. That just broke my damn heart. The kid had just gotten a crushing disappointment and was worried he had wasted my… time and money… the collateral of attendance.

I choked up and then stumbled through an attempt to tell him that wasn’t true. I mumbled a couple sentences but had to let it drop. I couldn’t articulate how I felt. I was trying to not cry.

It took me until the next day to be able to explain to him what I needed him to know:

I didn’t sign up to be in attendance. I signed up to be present.

I didn’t sign up to drive and pay. I signed up to take the ride with him. He might have been the one pedaling but I was happily riding alongside in the support van. I had loved being along with him as he went for something he cared about. I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. And if he wanted to keep going and keep working to try to make the team next year, I would be all-in on that too.

I signed up to be present in the things he cares about.

And then we agreed to let the dust settle for a week before talking about whether he wanted to press on or let it go. The heat of the moment isn’t the time to make decisions.

The next day, he told me he could save me the time. He wanted to keep working and then try out again next year. I told him I was all-in. And off we went back to the park to practice and to the gym to workout.

A week later, I was on the sidelines while he played pickup games with men 20 and 30 years older than him. He had been there practicing. They had shown up to play. He had asked if he could join and they had said sure. And for the next two hours, until the sun went down and the lights went out and it was too dark to play, he played for the love it.

The men were all Latino. They were skilled on the ball and creative. They went up and down the field yelling “Cuidado!” and “Fuerte!” and my son understood little of it and had a blast anyway.

It was such medicine for him. It was absolute chicken soup. And I knew it. And that made it medicine for me.

As the sun went down and the temperature dropped, I went back to my truck and put on layer after layer but I wasn’t about to cut his time short. He played until they couldn’t play anymore.

And then I found him other pickup games and looked into travel teams and got him a tryout at a good, competitive club that competes in a high-level league.

In the meantime, we went to the gym and practiced together and worked on him relaxing over the ball no matter how much he wants to do well or win. There isn’t much I can help him with on the field but I gave him an idea based on watching him and knowing him. He took it and ran with it. His accuracy improved instantly. And that let him relax even more. It was like watching a weight lift off his shoulders.

Sometimes, to get something you want so very much, you have to loosen up your grip on the handlebars and just ride.

The tryouts for the travel team were a couple weeks later, six weeks to the day after he had been cut from the freshman team.

It was a harder challenge. Travel is split by birth year rather than school year. This wasn’t incoming 9th graders. It was 9th and 10th graders. He was among the youngest kids on the field. He was trying out to join the team mid-season and they already had a good team. In fact, they had beaten the travel team a bunch of the kids from the freshman team he hadn’t made played on.

The play was fast-paced and daunting. These kids were good and strong and fast.

And then my son passed the first tryout and got invited back for a second.

And then he made the team.

On the way home that night, he said “If the high school tryout had been today, I would have made it easily.”

And he is right. He would have.

In the six weeks after a deep, painful disappointment, severe enough for me to worry for the first time in his life whether he would be okay, he had dug in his heels and worked and got better and earned it.

The first practice with his new team was just after New Year’s. It was cold and miserable. It was misting when practice started and pouring by the time it ended.

I stood out on the periphery and took pictures.

I capture moments. That is what I do.

Down that path through the fence, on a soccer pitch alit on a miserable night in the dead of winter, that blue flash of color is my son. Soaking wet, tired, and happy as can be.

And behind the camera, so was I.

I love watching my son play.

Now we have practices to get to each week and a tournament coming up and a season ahead.

In the meantime, he has freezing cold training in miserable rain and sore muscles and being bone-tired to look forward to - and he loves it. And so do I.

Come Saturdays this spring, my son will get to be out on the field again.

I’ll get to be on the sideline and endline taking pictures. Capturing moments.

Present.

And that makes me happier than I can say.

Every single time he gets in the car after a game, I tell him “I love watching you play.”

I am blessed with truly meaning those words.

I do love it. I love it for me.

Someday, this will all end. That’s something we had long talks about after he didn’t make the freshman team. Someday, no matter how good you are, it ends. Even the greatest players in the world someday aren’t good enough anymore.

Until then though, until the time comes when he decides that he is ready to let it go, I will be all in. I will be on the sidelines and endline sweating or bundled up. We’ll have rides home after games and he’ll say “Did you see when…” and the answer will be “Yup…” and we’ll talk all the way home.

And I will treasure each and every one of those opportunities until there are no more.

And then I will look back at all of the pictures taken, the moments captured, and cherish them all over again.

My son is a soccer player again. I am a soccer dad again.

And all the world is good.