``What? WHAT?''
I was screaming. Not at my daughter. Not exactly. But about my daughter, certainly.
We were in Orange County at a big holiday soccer tournament with her high school team. Sarah was interested in playing college soccer. The coach at UC-San Diego had been communicating with her. He was at the tournament. He promised to watch her, with several other girls on various teams, and perhaps offer her a spot on his team.
But now, Sarah said, she wouldn't be starting the game. She and a teammate had violated some team rule at the hotel -- hadn't been on time for breakfast or something -- and the coach was benching them for the first 10 minutes as punishment. Sarah told us beforehand, so we wouldn't be surprised.
``What? WHAT?''
``Don't worry, Dad,'' she said. ``It's fine.''
Fine? This is fine? When the UC-San Diego coach shows up and finds out why Sarah isn't on the field, this is fine? This is what we want? Didn't she understand this might blow her chance to play college soccer? I bit my tongue and nodded without a word, but as my daughter jogged away, I muttered an obscenity.
``Honey,'' my saintly wife said, ``you should cool it.''
I took a short walk and a deep breath. She was right. I couldn't be a hypocrite. The perspective that I had preached to my kids -- enjoy sports but don't let them overrun your life -- was leaking from my brain by the quart.
Last week, in my colleague Mark Emmons' excellent series about youth sports and the pursuit of college scholarships, he captured a lot of the numbers and facts and angles and quotes. But I don't think you can grasp the entire cultural experience unless you've been there.
(Warning: Parent bragging ahead.) My daughter and son, now college students, had terrific school sports experiences by just about any standard. Both played for Central Coast Section and league championship teams at Archbishop Mitty High School. Sarah's soccer team was ranked No. 1 in the nation for a while. Our son's basketball team was ranked No. 1 by the Mercury News and reached the NorCal championship game at Arco Arena in Sacramento.
And yet for all of that, I still look back on our family's trip through the youth and club sports gantlet with emotions that cause me to shake my head, shudder, grimace, get indigestion or . . . yes, scream.
This is what the gantlet does: It takes away the sweetness of simply enjoying a game. As your children progress in sports and the pressure builds from coaches and parents to make sure your kid plays on the ``right team'' with the ``right exposure'' so the kid can ``move up to the next level,'' you can almost feel the whole thing starting to smother you like a blanket.
For example, as Catholics, we knew the kids were going to attend one of the local Catholic high schools. But by the time Sarah and A.J. reached junior high, we were fully aware that if our kids eventually hoped to earn a spot on a varsity roster at one of those schools, then they had better begin playing at the club level. At one point, our son was actually playing baseball, basketball and ice hockey at the same time.
Nuts? You bet. Yet we plunged ahead, hitting the road almost every weekend, trying to ignore the insanity. As it turned out, Sarah had several great coaches and progressed to the point where she seemed to have college soccer potential. She was intrigued by the possibility. My only demand was that she not pick her college based on soccer -- that she pick a school first, then see whether it matched her soccer ambitions and proceed from there.
After Sarah made the varsity team at Mitty, the ride grew even more intense. The team had eight girls who went on to Division I schools. One of Sarah's club teams had five other girls who did the same. Along the way, I saw some amazing stuff.
There was the father who, at halftime of one game, stood and announced that his daughter had received scholarship offers from several schools and proudly said: ``We're taking the best deal, no matter what.'' This, even though his daughter was telling her teammates that she really liked another school that didn't offer as much money.
There was the mom who, after a high school championship game, said: ``This is nice, but nothing like winning a club title.''
That attitude still baffles me. The school championship banner hangs in the gym. The team picture is in the trophy case. At their class reunion, the girls can toast both. Where will they go to toast the club trophy? The garage of some former club coach, who has long since stashed it with his old tennis rackets?
Worst of all, there was the girl who broke a leg during a game and couldn't be moved -- so the referee moved the game to an adjoining field, as the moaning girl and her parents sat on the turf by themselves until the ambulance came. I still cringe at that one.
But in the end, you should know, Sarah was correct. Everything was fine. Sarah was admitted to UC-San Diego, and the coach said he would be happy to have her on the team. Oregon offered her some money, but more for academics than soccer. But before all that, during January of her senior year, the coach at Northwestern called Sarah with a very nice proposal.
The coach had no scholarship to offer. But she said if Sarah committed to playing at Northwestern, then she would be guaranteed admission -- as opposed to waiting until April and taking her chances with about 14,000 applicants for 1,900 spots. She would also be a full squad member, partake in summer practice and receive other perks. In the lingo of college sports, this is known as being ``a recruited walk-on.''
Sarah took the offer. And like many other student-athletes, she discovered that playing Division I sports can be both satisfying and draining. She eventually left the team on good terms and will graduate this spring.
Our son? That also was crazy, but slightly more relaxing. Early on, we figured out that although A.J. was a very good hoops player, he wasn't a Division I prospect. So we could enjoy the ride a little more.
If you are a parent in the same situation, my hope is that you can do the same. Throw off the blanket and try to breathe the fresh air of those sweet moments. In Sarah's senior season at Mitty, her team was playing on a horrible, muddy field somewhere. Sarah lost her footing and took a header into a huge puddle. After an instant, she came up for air, covered in muck, giggling almost uncontrollably. Then she began running to make the next play.
That's the freeze frame I am determined to take away from our run through the gantlet. And I am almost getting there.
Almost.
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