Sunday, September 24. 2017, Year of our Lord.
I arrived at the soccer field at 1:42, (two minutes late, per Asst. Coach Julie Stauffer’s emailed instructions) filled with marinara pasta and fettuccine alfredo, ready to run around as a ball boy for two hours in some sweet, Southern, ninety-degree weather. Now I know what you’re thinking, “running around in ninety degrees after eating pasta?” and yes, I’m here in the future too, and realize that I made an error.
Oh, and here’s a few more errors:
- I wore “Charcoal” skinny jeans. These were not just your normal grey skinny jeans, these boys were “Charcoal,” the bourgeoisie cousin of that boring, lower-class “Grey.”
- I wore a white shirt to the spaghetti lunch, and realized as I was shaking Stauffer’s hand that I looked like a Pollock, “Marinara No. 1.”
- The only sunglasses I had in my car were polarized aviators. Aviators aren’t bad sunglasses, and I will fight for my right to wear them at any time, but due to the apocalyptic nature of my dress, the aviators were trying too hard, and couldn’t quite pull my appearance together.
Julie offered to let me run back to my dorm room and change into shorts, but I thought it would add to the story if I sweated 10% of my bodily fluids out. Anyways, I chose to keep the “Charcoal” skinny jeans on, which I would regret.
Outside of Julie, the first person I met was Jake Lancaster, a student at Augustine high school, who plays soccer, and loves the sport enough to dedicate a Sunday afternoon to being a ball boy for the Bulldogs. Next was Kyle Erlandson, who drove from Chicago to be a ball boy and watch his sister, Krista Erlandson, one of the team’s goalies. Rounding out the team was Jason Garrett, Dean of the Business school, along with three of his kids: Priscilla, Lydia, and Silas. We have a pretty stacked team, and I’m excited to see what the process will look like.
Stauffer calls us all into a huddle, and informs us of our role. All we do is watch the game, and throw our soccer ball to a player if the game ball is kicked out of bounds. We were informed that ball boys are required by league policy, but that doesn’t make sense to me.
I have a personal theory: ball boys are nothing but a façade that parents have set up to wear out their kids. Think about it. Anyone could do this job: players, coaches, parents etc. Over the course of the game, I calculated that I saved the players nine seconds overall. That’s nothing over ninety minutes, and the only reasonable explanation for having a bunch of middle-schoolers run around for an hour and a half is to wear them out.
I was assigned the sector of the field next to Lee University’s bench, the Lady Bulldogs’ opponent. Stauffer tells me that I have the special task of fetching any soccer balls that go over the fence and roll down the hill.
When Stauffer walked away, I had a chance to survey the field for the first time, watching both teams warm up, shooting, passing, etc. I don’t know any of these girls, and one of them just spit. Like, onto the ground. Girls don’t spit, right?
The music is all “hype Christian music,” and if you’re reading this article, I have a feeling you already know exactly what that is. It’s a compilation of the four (less maybe?) Christian rappers, and a few clean pop songs. Andy Mineo’s “You Can’t Stop Me” has already played twice, and I have a feeling that it will continue to be a staple of the afternoon’s playlist.
I can already feel my legs broiling beneath the fabric of the jeans. Ah, yes. I have made a horrible mistake.
The announcer asks for everyone to rise for prayer and the National anthem, both of which go off without a hitch. About halfway through the anthem (recorded, probably from Spotify) the scoreboard buzzer goes off twice in a row. I like to think that some member of ANTIFA broke into the announcer’s little cubicle on top of the bleachers and pressed the buzzer on purpose, hoping to disrupt the liturgical act of patriotism, but I’ll never know for sure.
One of the Lee coachs’ last name is “Hennesy,” and I can see a fight erupting over that somehow, with a few of Union’s donors coming out to campus to protest a person on campus whose last name is “a little bit too close to an alcoholic beverage, thank you very much.” This didn’t happen, but my mind had a lot of places that it went before the actual soccer game began.
Of course, I had forgotten about the terribly uncomfortable ceremony which is “The Calling-Out of Names” that accompanies every sport, required by social constructs to begin a game. The announcer in his lofty cubicle calls out names from both teams, butchering a few Lee names along the way.
It’s time for kickoff. I am standing next to Mike Colander, the Assistant Sports Information Director for Lee University, who is filming the game with a tripod and camera. He’s the one who gives me the details on the “Lady Flames,” which is Lee’s soccer team, and not a group of progressive Pentecostals, as you might have (fairly) suspected. Mike tells me the head coach is from England, while the assistant coach is from Haiti.
Kickoff
About twenty minutes into the game, I have a revelation: Soccer is one of those sports that’s equally enjoyable to watch, regardless of gender. Take Basketball for instance: the NBA is more popular than the WNBA, because it’s a different sort of game. There aren’t dunks in the WNBA (there have been 11 dunks in the history of the WNBA) and there’s a lot more set-and-shoot than in the NBA. Baseball and Softball are also radically different games, with different rules and different audiences. With soccer though, it’s basically the same sport. The slide tackles, headers, crazy handling etc. are all present.
What I’m trying to say is, it’s just as boring to watch women’s soccer as it is to watch men’s soccer.
My ball boy skills are not utilized until halfway through the first half, when a ball goes over the fence, requiring me to run pell-mell down the incline, grab the ball, throw it to Jake, and bolt back to my post. This is tiring, and although I only do this three times over the course of the game, my respect for the cardio of these players grows exponentially through the process.
Hearing “Let’s go Lee,” “You got it Lee,” and “Wolf pack, wolf pack” over and over has begun to get to me a little bit. I’m not saying I was cheering for Lee by the end of the game, but I can verify that brainwashing via repeated phrases is a viable tool, and might work on a lesser human.
One of Union’s players just did something impossible with their feet and the soccer ball, and the only thing I can compare it to is that Carnival trick with the three cups and the red ball. Two moves, and suddenly the soccer ball has teleported through the Lee defender along with the Lady Bulldog. I may not appreciate the sport as much as I should, but I can get behind the finesse and skill that these college athletes have.
As the sweat begins to pool in my Nikes, I send up an audible prayer to God, thanking him that the clock doesn’t stop much in soccer.
Silas is on the other side of the field, booking it back and forth, possibly setting the record for fastest ball boy alive. He’s a dynamo, and seems to be sprinting alongside the college soccer players, despite being two feet tall.
You know what, I take it back. Women’s soccer is more fun to watch than men’s. This is like watching a bunch of Amazons duke it out on the battlefield, while men’s soccer is just a bunch of pissed-off, testosterone-drenched guys. This is amazing, guys are gross.
On the sidelines, I notice that the players are all wearing “don’t-shoot-me-neon”-colored pennies to distinguish them from the players on the field. Things have changed since I played soccer for the Williamson County Parks and Recreation department.
Interestingly, Union doesn’t attack like Lee. The Bulldogs will usually have three strikers up, while the Flames will pull four or five players to crash the goal. Maybe this is usually a bad strategy, but it seems to be working for the Flames, and they look like the better team on the field.
With the first half winding down (0-0), the announcer counts down from 10, like we’re in an arcade and need to put more quarters in before we can play the second half. That doesn’t seem necessary, but maybe I just don’t know soccer that well.
Halftime
I’m halfway through. I’ve never sweated more while writing an article, and don’t think I’ll have another chance to do so. I am grateful that ball boys are paid in a drink, as my water bottle is empty, and I have a feeling that I will need some electrolytes or sugar by the time this game is over.
The Christian hype music has been replaced by Imagine Dragons, the most Christian secular music possible. Not sure if this is an improvement.
I walk back over to my spot with a blue Powerade, interested to be on the side of Union’s goalie now.
Second Half
Ten minutes in, the second half is already considerably more entertaining. There have been two close attempts on goal already, about as many as in the first half. Still, the game is tied at 0-0, and my homework will suffer if this thing goes into OT.
So far this half, I have saved the game 4 seconds, and have had to run down and back up the hill once. My theory about this position existing to exhaust children only grows stronger.
Interestingly, I see that my Powerade label says “Calories (Energy) 130,” which is one of the cleverest things I have seen on a nutritional label. Calories are energy, so why don’t more companies label their foods and drinks in a similar manner? Regardless, props to Coca Cola.
At long last, the 0-0 curse has been broken, 75 minutes into the game. Here’s the setup: a long pass down the field went well past the intended Lee receiver, and a Union player tapped the ball to the goalie. This may be new information for some readers, but if a player on the same team as a goalie passes it to that goalie, then the goalie cannot touch the ball with their hands. I learned this the hard way in middle school. So the Union goalie has the ball, and she’s trying to do something clever with it, to get it past the defender who is barreling towards her. Unfortunately, this move did not work out for her, and the Lee striker takes the ball to the net, not even shooting it, but dribbling it in for Lee’s first (and only) goal.
The rest of the game passed fairly normally. Both teams had massive drives that should have resulted in a goal apiece, but came to nothing, and I had to go down the hill to retrieve a soccer ball for the third time that game. Losing the game began to wear on the lady Bulldogs, and they start screaming like banshees, trying to pull off a “1980 Miracle on Ice” in the last two minutes of the game.
The sun came back out for the last few minutes (it had been under cloud cover for most of the second half), and Union showed no signs of giving up. They milked the last twenty seconds of the game for all its worth, trying to stop the clock via injuries. After a couple minutes of this, the buzzer went off, I said goodbye to Mike, and began the long walk back to the parking lot.
I was a college-aged ball boy for the Lady Bulldogs, and although it’s sad to see your team lose, I was grateful to be a part (albeit a small one) of a Union soccer game. For more information on the Lady Bulldogs, visit this link.
