Another reason for continuing the blog is that it has kind of become the beginnings of a personal history. It is always better to write about things while you can still remember them! I am going to start copying these things to another file so that, after the blog has served its purpose, I will be able to keep going and won't have to start over.
Understanding One Another
April's grandmother, Lucille Cannon, remains one of my favorite people - even though she has been gone for several years now. She was such an interesting person. Grandma Cannon was a fairly renowned water color artist and spent some time (if I'm not mistaken) as president of the Utah Water Color Society. The most intriguing part of her story, to me, is that she didn't really start painting until she was a senior citizen. She went back to school at the U while in her early 60's and earned a BA in fine arts - and she did it backwards. She convinced the school counselor to let her take the classes in reverse order - from the hardest to the easiest. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that conversation! Grandma Cannon was one of the most Christ-like people I have ever met. I felt like one of her grand children from the beginning even though she hardly knew me. That was the thing about her - she could make you feel like you were the only person on earth when you were talking with her. She listened to and heard every word you said and always had relevant questions to ask about the subject of the conversation. I loved her for that. One of the most enjoyable experiences I had was sitting next to her on a flight when the whole Long family went to Hawaii 14 years ago.
Grandma Cannon could talk about everything - from sports to art to making castings. I don't know how we got onto the subject but we started talking about Pablo Picasso. I made some remark about how crazy I thought he was and that I didn't really get his art. Well let me tell you of the education I received during what has to be the shortest 5 hours of my life! She told me how at a very young age little Pablo could very quickly draw precise likenesses of people and animals and that he was so good he got bored with drawing normal stuff. His IQ was in the genius range. He had to find more complex and 'interesting' ways to express himself. That is how he sort of invented his own style - the depth of which takes time to appreciate. Grandma Cannon taught me two things on that trip: 1) sometimes the best way to learn is to keep your eyes and your ears open and your mouth shut. 2) If you want people to understand you then you have to be willing to let them in. If April ever reads this she will probably say "well then what happened to you?". It is true that I stopped communicating with her on some levels. In my defense I will only say this - you can only have your opinions and feelings scrutinized and rejected so many times before you no longer want to go through what for me was the painful process of always having to justify everything I said and thought. At times it felt like she was never impressed with anything I ever did. Maybe I'm not that impressive, I don't know. But once upon a time I was a pretty good soccer player. Maybe it's just that the older I get the better I was...
Warning: This will be the most self-indulgent blog post you ever get from me.
The Early Years
I first started playing organized soccer when I was 7. I had played baseball for a couple of years but was not very good at it. I think the last year I played I only got one hit the whole season. My parents could tell I wasn't enthusiastic about our national past time and to their credit never pressured me to keep playing. That is why when my best friend, Steve Smith, introduced me to soccer and got me to sign up I fell instantly in love with the most popular sport in the world. For me and soccer it really was love at first sight. Instead of sitting and watching for half of the game I could run the whole time! From the beginning I showed aptitude at the game. I was smaller, but also faster than, most of the other kids and I loved to chase the ball. I can still remember the blue, reversible, mesh jerseys with the vinyl numbers that would stick to my back as I got sweaty. I have tried to find some of my old soccer photos but have not been able to. My mom probably has them stashed away somewhere.
For a quiet, shy and reserved kid the soccer field was a great refuge. In some ways I became a different person out on 'the pitch'. I was aggressive and loved to win. I never hurt anyone intentionally - when I was little. As I got older and began playing defense there was a certain element of intimidation that accompanied being the 'last line of defense' but for the most part, as a young boy, I just loved to play. In my second season I scored a lot of goals which prompted my dad to lower the $5 per goal reward to 1 dollar - which did not deter me one bit - it actually made me want it more. As I got older I spent increasingly more time with a soccer ball between my feet. I have sometimes wondered if I had OCD as I would often sit on the couch, watch TV, and juggle my soccer ball with my feet. For you non-soccer types juggling involves kicking the ball from foot to foot without letting it touch the ground. It is a great way to develop a feel for how the different surfaces of your feet react with the ball.
The Teenage Years
As time progressed I spent more and more time playing the game itself. I would juggle for hours in the back yard. I would kick the ball against the back wall of our garage in the back yard until my parents would say "enough! It sounds like your trying to kick a hole in the wall'. Funny thing is I kind of was. I would kick the ball against that wall as hard and as low to the ground as I could and then try to recover fast enough to stop it as it came back at me. That was how I developed the power in my shot and my ball handling skills. I ruined the soffet above that back wall but my dad never really got that mad at me for it. I think he felt that there were worse things I could be doing and that if I stayed away from drugs, alcohol, and girls then it was a small price to pay. I also had one of those little net thingies with an elastic tether that you could stake to the ground. I would spend hours kicking the ball trying to break that tether - until I finally did. Had to go knock on the neighbor's door to ask for my ball back. In my early teen years I was introduced to the world of competition soccer. The difference with competition teams is that you had to try out, you practiced more, and the other kids were better - and almost always for me - bigger. Bigger but not faster. Somewhere along the way I developed very good foot speed, which for some reason got me moved from offense to defense. I was frustrated at first because I loved to score goals. I would have been unhappy with the move were it not for the best soccer coach I have ever known - Hans Knubel (the correct pronunciation is, actually, Kuh-nuble). Hans explained to me that some of the best players in the world were defenders and the reason was they had to have all of the same skills as the other players but that it took a special kind of smarts to play defense. He also reassured me that I would still get opportunities to score goals - and he was right about that part. Maybe I'm just a sucker but I swallowed it hook line and sinker and played defense for the rest of my soccer career. It was during this period (I think I was 14 or 15 years old) that we were playing a game in downtown Salt Lake and noticed a guy with a clip board standing on our sideline. No one knew who he was but he watched our whole game. After the game he approached me and my parents and introduced himself as a talent scout for the U of U men's soccer team. He asked me for my name, address and phone number and where I would be going to high school. It was a brief encounter and I never heard from him again (the U cancelled their men's program before I made it to high school) but that experience made me work harder at becoming a better player and Hans would use that episode to motivate me in the future. This photo was taken earlier this year at an RSL game. Hans was there celebrating 70th birthday. He looks pretty good for 70, don't you think?
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| Hans, Inga, and me (about 20 lbs ago). |
High School
When I made the team as a sophomore I did not expect to make the varsity team. Nor did I expect the reception I would get from the seniors. They were awesome to me, even when in our first pre season game I made some really dumb mistakes and pretty much gave the other team a goal. One of the primary reasons I made the varsity squad was my speed. I was the second fastest kid on the team and could run the 40 yard dash in 4.4 seconds. One of the greatest compliments I ever got was from my Grandpa Giles. He didn't get the sport of soccer (he was more of a college football guy) but he would still come and watch a lot of my games. One time after a game he kind of sized me up and said, "You run like those football players at the Y (Grandpa G was from Springville and was a huge BYU fan - no body's perfect). You know, they're looking for kids who can run like that." Grandpa Giles wasn't given to compliments so for me it was a big deal to me that he said that.
Playing on the varsity team was a whole new experience for me. The kids were generally bigger and stronger than I was, but again, very few were faster. I played sweeper for the first part of the season - the position that I had been playing for the last 5 or 6 years. Sweeper is the roving defender who plays behind the line of fullbacks - the last line of defense. It's a little like the free safety position in football - part rover and part enforcer. Sweepers are responsible for helping the other guys out if they get beat and that means they have to cover a lot of ground. Because I wasn't big enough (or probably mean enough) to play sweeper that year, I was moved to left fullback and John Crooks (THE fastest player on the team) became the sweeper. We called him the grim reaper (it's fun to recall some of these details!). He had an incredible knack for taking people down - often by pulling on their jersey - and not getting caught. I enjoyed playing left fullback but I missed the free-ranging opportunities of the sweeper position. The consolation was that the best player on the other team was usually the right forward - and therefore, my responsibility. The move from sweeper to left back was a good one, for me and the team. 'Reaper' was the best sweeper I ever played with and our defense was very solid. We made the state tournament that year but lost in the first round. I think some of the seniors on the team had had a little too much to drink the night before and were not 100% for the game.
My junior year in high school started out great. We had a solid team and won most of our games. For me the wheels came off about half way through the season when I was diagnosed with a heart problem that required open-heart surgery to correct. I originally included the story here but as I began to reflect on it and recall the details it got pretty long so I made a separate post about it. Anyone who is interested can read it.
When my heart problem was discovered I was forbidden from participating in any physical activity and missed the second half of the season. It was a hard thing for me - especially when tournament time came around.
It was difficult because I was in very good physical condition and took pretty good care of myself. I never even really drank soda pop - let alone some of the more harmful substances that some of my teammates indulged in. The details are in the other post but for the sake of this part of the story I should say this. It really took the wind out of my sails and I let it affect me negatively. I suffered in the classroom and was upset at my soccer coach (who was also my math teacher) for failing me. Yeah, I know, I'm an engineer and failed math in high school! Idiot (me, not coach Cottle). The biggest impact it had on me was that I no longer felt invincible. I had never been seriously injured, in soccer or anything else. I knocked heads with another kid once which resulted in several stitches over my left eye (and knocked me out) but that was my worst soccer injury. I also lost a step speed wise and was never the same - not sure why. It took time to get rid of the bad attitude - in fact it wasn't until I really began preparing for my mission that I snapped completely out of it.
Anyway, my senior season in soccer was the best ever. We were really good. We went undefeated in our region and handily beat the hated Brighton Bengals twice that year and our defense was one of the top rated in the state. Our average goals allowed per game was right around 1 - I want to say less than one but that may not be accurate. We were even getting attention in the local media and were part of the discussion for the state championship. When it came time for the state tournament we were the top seed in the inter-region playoff bracket and drew the 4th seed - the Bonneville Lakers. Channel 2 sports was there to cover the game and the stands were pretty full. Our football team at Hillcrest was never very good so I think that contributed to the good crowds we got at our soccer games. Well, to make a long story short, we believed the hype a little too much and lost that game. Our season was over. We played decent but they got two goals that were almost identical. They had a pair of twins on their team who were really tall and on two separate occasions they got free kicks from around midfield. One tall kid lobbed a bending pass into the box and the other tall kid headed it into the upper corner of the goal - practically indefensible. The second time it happened it was like Deja Vu - the kick was from the same tall kid, from nearly the same spot on the field, to the other tall kid who headed it into the same corner of the goal. It was weird. We started to play panicked and lost our form and the game. We were shocked but we didn't deserve to win. Just like that my soccer career was over and it left a void in my life.
I never really played much after that, except for a few months after my mission when I helped coach my youngest brothers' (the twins) team. I have occasionally, with small groups of friends or my brothers, laced up the shoes and hit the pitch. Once in a while someone will say "Hey Webber, can you still kick the ball like you used to?". To which I grin, tee up the ball and let it rip. It's not what it used to be but it but still has some of the old heat...
The Beautiful Game
There are many reasons why soccer is the most popular sport in the world. One is that it can be played just about anywhere. All you need is an open field (or a street), something with which to mark the goals and something round to kick. In some of the poorer countries around the world an old stuffed sock or shirt becomes the ball. Another reason is that it resonates with so many different people across many social, economic and political backgrounds. I once read an interesting article in National Geographic about soccer. It was fascinating and one of the most eye-opening articles I have ever read about any sport. In fact, it's here if you are inclined to read it:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2006/06/soccer/soccer-text
Here is one of the best parts - which puts it way better than I can:
Brazil
Ballet With the Ball: A Love Story
By John Lanchester
Why do we fall in love with soccer? What happens? At some deep level the reason soccer snags us is that good soccer is beautiful, and it's difficult, and the two are related. A team kicking the ball to each other, passing into empty space that is suddenly filled by a player who wasn't there two seconds ago and who is running at full pelt and who without looking or breaking stride knocks the ball back to a third player who he surely can't have seen, who, also at full pelt and without breaking stride, then passes the ball, at say 60 miles an hour, to land on the head of a fourth player who has run 75 yards to get there and who, again all in stride, jumps and heads the ball with, once you realize how hard this is, unbelievable power and accuracy toward a corner of the goal just exactly where the goalkeeper, executing some complex physics entirely without conscious thought and through muscle-memory, has expected it to be, so that all this grace and speed and muscle and athleticism and attention to detail and power and precision will never appear on a score sheet and will be forgotten by everybody a day later—this is the strange fragility, the evanescence of soccer. It's hard to describe and it is even harder to do, but it does have a deep beauty, a beauty hard to talk about and that everyone watching a game discovers for themselves, a secret thing, and this is the reason why soccer, which has so much ugliness around it and attached to it, still sinks so deeply into us: Because it is, it can be, so beautiful...
I love the way that guy writes! Americans, for the most part, don't get soccer. I don't know if we aren't patient enough or we are just suspicious of things that weren't invented here. I realize some things about the game itself are out of place in American sports. Things like 'diving', faking an injury, or my biggest pet peeve - overreacting to an injury and acting like you are dying until the trainer comes out and sprays his magic mist on you and you get up and play the rest of the game at full speed. Americans don't buy into that because we watch American football where you can see a player suffer a real, painful injury and keep playing - even without the magic spray.
Last week I was reminded of the beauty of the game when I went to the RSL playoff game and saw this goal by Alvoro Saborio.
Sabo's goal is even better in this video than when I saw it live - it was beautiful. One of those rare moment where everything went right. For me soccer is a great metaphor for life. It can be so frustrating and sloppy at times and then suddenly, it can become gratifying and elegant - it can be beautiful. Sometimes there is a great play that completely turns the tide - a play in which one player exerts himself and takes a chance, stops a pass or a shot and the momentum does a 180 and the team that was on its heels is suddenly on the attack. The whole mood of the stadium is transformed from boredom or even disdain - to anticipation and excitement. It can be electric.
Like life, soccer can be mundane (though it is never boring to me). It can also be frustrating and even irritating when, as a fan, you can see from the cheap seats that the team isn't playing as well as they can or that it's just going to be a long night because you can feel it's going to be. But every once in a while - if you know what to look for, the game can be truly beautiful and when it is - all seems to be right with the world.
So, like Grandma Cannon did when I revealed my ignorance of Pablo Picasso, I try to be patient with people who show the same contempt for the beautiful game - my game. If they have a moment and are inclined to listen - I will try to share my appreciation for it - and if I'm half as good as Grandma was, they will understand a little better. And maybe next time they have a chance, they will sit down and watch a game. And if they are lucky - they will witness greatness - and it will be beautiful to them too...
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