I didn't get into soccer until my daughter started playing it in 1999. Then, a weird thing happened.
In 1999, I left the Chicago Bulls beat for the Daily Herald to spend more time at home. I was moved onto the Chicago Bears beat as the backup beat guy, became the weekend baseball guy, became the backup college basketball guy, and became the beat writer for the Chicago Fire.
My head began spinning with that last assignment. At the time, I knew nothing about soccer, had never seen the game played except in an occasional World Cup match, I didn't understand it, and I didn't want to understand it.
At the same time, I was volunteered to coach my daughter's soccer team. She was five years old, I was 43, and I got the job because I was a sports writer, and who better to coach than a sports writer? The fact I knew nothing about the sport didn't matter. What mattered was I had weekend nights off and most Saturday mornings off during the season.
But something weird happened, and it happened rather quickly.
Instead of being put off by the fact I didn't know anything about their sport, the Chicago Fire players accepted me, because I wanted to learn. I was going to do the best job I could at covering the Fire, and to do that, I had to know something about the sport. The readers, many of them with a lot of free time, blistered me regularly on message boards on the Internet, and try as I might to ignore them, occasionally they got back to me.
Bob Bradley was coach of the Fire at the time, the same Bob Bradley who now coaches the U.S. national team. He was tremendous in his patience and willingness to explain the game to me. To this day, he counts me as a success story because I became so enthralled with the game that I eventually got a coaching certificate to work with my youngest son.
My son has moved beyond my coaching skills, but I still write about the Fire, and I still care a lot about the sport on all levels. I look forward to seeing my two sons and my second daughter play for our local high school some day, and I really look forward to promoting the sport on this website, when we get our football coverage set.
If you have similar stories, I would love to hear them. And if you know of a soccer story that needs to be covered, I would love to hear about that as well.
If you have read this blog, you probably know how to respond, so please do.
Kent McDill
Illinois Content Coordinator
Coachesaid.com
Comments: