Way back in 1998 I got a call from my wife that she had just signed my daughter up for soccer at the local Y. I questioned her since neither of us had played the game in our lives. She was 4 at the time (not my wife… my daughter). Forward to second grade and she had just won the recreational league championship for her team! We were having dinner and she started talking about how she would play soccer in collage. I remembered all of these stories about kids dreaming about being pro sports stars and how slim the odds really are, so I asked her to think about how many kids she sees on the fields each weekend. We are just a small suburb so how many teams are there around the country and then how few Universities there are in comparison, and of each universities only 20 kids get to play soccer.
I’ll skip a bit but my daughter was in tears and I felt about one foot tall. There isn’t a manual for parenting, but no matter how logical you think you are this is a big NO!
Today, she will be calling a coach of a very prestigious private Division 1 NCAA university to accept his offer to play on his team and get her education paid for. $200k isn’t bad.
My oldest niece was a fantastic soccer player and was ready to go to Olympic Soccer Camp. But someone smited her on the field and she ended up twisting her ankle. She couldn’t go. She also had to sit out the rest of the season, and she had to miss the prom.
That’s great! Congratulations on being supportive and helping her achieve her dream too!
We have a field behind our house where there are two H.S. girls who spend a ridiculous amount of time training to be your daughter- I have kicked around with them a bit and I wish them all the best, but I can’t imagine having that dedication myself.
