Hooligans

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=99174

When I was in 8th grade, I played on the St. Peter's Lutheran soccer team. We were pretty bad ass. One time, in the middle of a torrential downpour, we defeated Trinity Utica 1-nill. It probably means nothing to you, but Trinity Utica was the New York Yankees of the Lutheran league soccer world. We ran into our locker room, soaking wet, and started banging the lockers and screaming like banshees until our coach came in and yelled at us for banging up school property. Of course he was just joking, because it was a shitty lutheran school, so he started banging on the lockers too and shouting to the high heavens. He's actually a Lutheran minister now, which probably sucks compared to being a soccer coach.

As a junior high-aged chap, I was much taller than most of the others boys in my class. I grew fast and early, so playing in a soccer league was more like Rollerball to me, minus Chris Klein (or James Caan, if you so choose). I was known as the enforcer on the team, replacing my limited soccer skills with a strong kick and the size to pretty much knock out any forward who stepped into my zone. I'd slam smaller players into the dirt, my coach and the parents would cheer, sometimes I'd get a card, but in the end, I'd be pretty satisfied. Some of the opponents would be pretty pissed, though.

Another advantage to having the height was the complete domination of the header. I could knock that ball with my noggin before any of the other puny soccer children would even get close to it. After a few years, I had the technique down and could guide the ball anywhere I wanted it. I often spent afternoons in the back yard, practicing bouncing the ball off my head until I'd get a bad headache. It was my weapon. So when I read this story (courtesy of www.fark.com), I wept for seasons past and realized that young boys of the next generation will be even more wimpy than mine. Brad Pitt was right when he said we're a generation of men raised by women. There is little, if any, masculinity left in society today.

It must have been nice, in those bygone days of old, when kids could skin their knees, get some stitches, or break a few fingers without prompting some jackass in a state legislature to draft up the Youth Coddling Act of 2005. It must have been nice when a teenager could go hunting with his father without some animal rights group breathing down their necks. And it must have been nice when two boys duked it out on the playground instead of bringing guns to school. Is it no wonder how often you read about underground youth fight clubs popping up at high schools? Years of natural conditioning, whether it is right or acceptable by today's societal standards, is being strangled out of these kids. I admit that I'm no Rambo, but there is still something invigorating about wrestling your buddies or slamming them hard into the ground during a pickup football game.

Anyway, I like soccer the way it is. Add a helmet or ban heading and you're moving one step closer to the emasculation of America.