So as the pre-season rumor mill keeps on circulating hot air, I thought it an opportune time to introduce myself and help everyone get to know more about this Walt guy behind the Twitter nickname. Most of my acquaintances know I'm American, that the five hour time difference drives me completely crazy during the EPL season, and that I can get a little over-excited when talking about football in general and FPL in particular (especially when my team tanks and I scream all kinds of obscenities aimed at my team and the EPL squads they play for on Twitter). Case in point; last season's Liverpool-West Brom match.
Last week I published an article talking about my childhood and upbringing and how I pretty much lived, ate and breathed soccer from the time I was 8 until my sophomore year in college, when I was faced with a difficulty that I have not yet posted about but that I really don't want to get into right now (maybe some other time). It's impossible to downplay the role that soccer had in shaping my life. I believe it was the single most important part of my childhood and teen years for many reasons.
First off, it kept me focused and taught me so many amazing life skills. Through soccer I learned life lessons that often get talked about and poo-pooed but that really make a big difference in someone's life. A parent or teacher can extoll the virtues of "practice makes perfect" a million times, each one of them going in one ear and out the other. But put a soccer ball at your feet and what can often be disregarded as an empty life lesson springs to life.
Practice DOES make perfect. It also teaches perseverance. And luckily I'm stubborn. I look back at hour after hour and day after day of practice; stubborness; tenacity. If while practicing juggling I could only get to 30 touches, I set a goal to get to 50. And then I didn't stop until I got there. Yeah, it got dark and yeah, there were other things that I could have been doing. But I didn't want to do other things. What I wanted more than anything in the world was to get to 50. And once I got there I wanted to get to 75; then 100; then 200. When you set a goal like that for yourself and you know that the only thing standing in the way between you and your goal is practice, the practice comes easy. And so does the feeling of satisfaction when you get there. The challenge is set and if you set challenges for yourself that can only be achieved by stretching yourself beyond your current capabilities, you not only constantly grow, but you also constantly reinforce belief in yourself.
In that way, growing up with a soccer ball was crazy meaningful. It had the feeling of a game, but I was really teaching myself life lessons that would become a part of who I am and were instilled in me not by reading and comprehending, or listening and understanding, but by DOING and ACCOMPLISHING. I had all the evidence I ever needed that if you tried hard enough to accomplish something, you could. That the only thing standing in my way was the imagination I could use to come up with the next goal and the amount of effort I was willing to put forth to get there. Good stuff for a little kid to learn.
It also taught me about teamwork. No matter how good I was (and I was pretty good), there was no way I was going to win a game by myself. I could influence the game, and oftentimes was able to affect the outcome of the game through my efforts, but I couldn't play all 11 positions at once; I needed my teammates and they needed me. Because of my tenacity I was hard on my fellow players, but I never expected anything out of them that I didn't also expect from myself. At times that was a problem, because I expected A LOT out of myself. Through the hard work of practice and continuing to reach new goals, and through the understanding of how hard I needed to work to reach those goals, I could be a hell of a teammate in both a fun way and a not so fun way. If I was going to sprint an extra 15 yards to cut off a passing angle, then you sure as shit better do your part and close him down or tighten up on the man you were marking. I didn't bust my ass just for you to lay back and give the guy an easy outlet and a get out of jail free card. And it worked both ways. If I saw you put the effort in to shut down an angle, you bet your ass that I had your back. No question; every time. To get the ball back, we had to work TOGETHER; in unison with one another. We had to anticipate; know exactly where the other person was going to go and what they were going to do when they got there. And I learned that the more you practiced at that with your teammates the better you got at it, and the more successful you were. Another damn good thing for a person to learn while growing up.
It taught me to be competitive, aggressive and confident. The most confident times of my life were times out on the soccer pitch; the place I felt most comfortable. That was my territory; my wheelhouse. If being good at soccer meant putting in the effort to do all of the things that were necessary to play my position, do my part, and be a part of a team, then I had succeeded before I had already begun, because effort and exertion and TRYING HARD were all firmly within my control; and I NEVER doubted my willingness to leave everything out on the field. NEVER.
Looking back now, perhaps almost as important as the valuable life lessons I was learning without even realizing it, was the fact that it kept me busy and away from other things. I never really knew about drugs and alcohol while growing up because they weren't a part of my life and they weren't out on the soccer field. I had heard about them and heard rumors of people in school doing it, but I was so focused on soccer they never entered my mind and they stayed just that; "ideas" that other people did. You couldn't get me away from soccer long enough to even turn my attention to them, let alone try and convince me that it would be more fun. I had all the fun I needed. I had set my sights on all the goals I ever wanted to accomplish. If I was juggling 250 touches and wanted to get to 300, there was no way on Earth you could ever convince me that drinking a beer or smoking a cigarette or a joint would be just as fun or worthy of my attention. I just simply never was tempted. It was something I vaguely had heard of but was as much a part of my reality as the tooth fairy.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) for those who know me now, these lessons learned through playing the sport I love have stuck with me into adulthood. I still expect a lot out of myself. I still expect a lot out of others. I still get disappointed and mad when I put forth effort towards something I know is the right thing to do and the right way to do it (cutting down that passing angle) and the person I'm working with doesn't put forth the same amount of effort and the finished product does not live up to the standards that I instinctively set. It causes problems sometimes, because I know that what we end up with is something several levels below what it could be if we all did it thoroughly and properly.
But alas, that is not the subject of this article.
The title I created for my blog a few weeks ago when I set it up was whatiwantmykidstoknowaboutfootball.com. I didn't know it at the time, and this article has come completely by surprise (I actually sat down intending to write about something else), but in many ways, this is exactly what I wanted to accomplish when starting out.
I'm a parent now, and my children mean more to me than anything else on the face of this Earth. I learned a lot from playing soccer, and almost everything I ever learned through playing soccer was positive. THAT is what I want to get across. THAT is why I am so passionate about the greatest sport in the world. It's about not only the sport itself, but what it can mean to me individually, what it can mean to my children, and to any of the billions of people who play it and enjoy it around the world. The details may be different for each of us, and the way that it puts a stamp on our lives may be different for each of us, but it's way more than watching a bunch of guys run around like crazy kicking a round ball. It's life; and in soccer can be found so much about life that is good and positive and that makes things better for people.
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