My Hero

So I had big plans for my next blog post. I was going to explain how I came up with the name for my blog and what I plan to blog about since some people seem to have the…wrong impression about that. But as John Steinbeck said, “The best-laid plans…often go awry.” My younger brother, you see, went and did something last week that upstaged me—he got signed to be a professional soccer player. Big deal, you say. Update your status on Facebook, and get on with telling us about your blog. Big deal?! BIG DEAL?! Why yes, it is a big deal, and let me tell you why…

The Futboller started playing soccer around the time I did. I came home from second-grade wonderfulness crying after a very mean boy (who’s not at all mean in adulthood) in my class told me that I couldn’t play soccer with the boys at recess anymore because I wasn’t on a team outside of school. As my identity at the time was firmly rooted in my tomboyishness and proclivity to hang with the boys, I demanded that Mom (sorry, Mom, but you don’t get a “cool” nickname) sign me up for soccer right away. She figured that if she was going to sign one kid up, she might as well sign the other kid up. (My youngest brother was too young to play at the time but dipped his toes into the greatest sport known to humankind a few years later.) After The Futboller’s first game—in which he ran all the way down the field after receiving a pass from a teammate, took a shot, and kept running…straight to the swing set in the middle of the park—we thought that we could cross this sport off the list of sports for him to play. Stupid us.

The Futboller has spent the last 20 years eating, sleeping, and breathing soccer. The Cliff Notes’ version of his soccer career is that he was a much sought-after youth player, played for the premier league in our good ol’ hometown of Tucson, made his age group’s Olympic Development Program (ODP) squad every year he was eligible, and captained his high school and college soccer teams. Rather than dragging The Futboller back ONTO the field, as my mom had to do in his first game, we now find ourselves dragging The Futboller OFF the field…or at least trying to.

While all of the above makes for a great story, three years ago is where the story gets really good, in my opinion. That’s when the Futboller picked up his cleats—or “boots,” as he calls them—and moved to the East Coast so that he could be closer to the pro soccer scene (well, and so he could be closer to his girlfriend, who had transferred to a college there). For the past three years, he has worked his butt off trying to get his big toe in the door of Major League Soccer by making a Premier Development League team. You know those movies about the athletes who rise before dawn to train, put in a full day of work, and then either put in more training time or pore over fitness manuals or skills-development drills into the wee hours of the night? Those athletes who train through pain, blood, and injuries? My brother could star in one of those movies. He came home for a week-long vacation this past fall and had to pack the biggest suitcase he had in order to fit the equipment he brought with him so that he wouldn’t miss a week of training. Look up the definition of hardcore, and my brother’s face stares back at you.

You’d think, then, that with all of this training (not to mention incredible talent), The Futboller would be a shoo-in for a team. Not exactly. You see, pro soccer is not entirely about skill; it’s also about who you know and how you know them. The Futboller was often overlooked by coaches who chose players they’d coached since Diaper Days or players who’d come up through the “right channels,” despite the fact that he was much better than them. Many times, The Futboller was told that he didn’t have enough experience. How he was supposed to get experience when he wasn’t given a chance is beside me, but I digress…Despite how discouragingly gut-wrenching these rejections were,  and despite how much it made him question whether God was trying to tell him that he just wasn’t meant to play soccer professionally, The Futboller didn’t give up. And that’s the reason I’m writing this blog post.

My brothers and I grew up under the mantra “Hard Work Pays Off.” It was beaten into our brains at the parochial school where it was our school motto, and we got a second helping of it at home from our parents. The Futboller took this motto to heart, and last week, he got to see tangible proof of it. I’m so very proud of my brother for realizing his dream and becoming a professional athlete, but I’m more proud of him for the diligence, determination, and HEART he displayed getting there. The Futboller may be my younger brother, but I look up to him for how he’s accomplished what he’s accomplished. Last week, my brother became more than my brother and more than a professional athlete—he became one of my personal heroes. Regardless of where this next phase of his soccer career takes him, The Futboller will always have my admiration, and I will always be one of his number-one fans.