Walking out onto a foggy, windy high school's soccer field yesterday afternoon, it wasn't hard spotting my own redwood sapling. He's grown taller over the summer, has just turned 15, and yesterday was his debut as a freshman on his school's varsity team.
As the only kid in the lineup not of Latino or Asian lineage, his bright red hair stood out from the rest.
His coach started him at defense, moving him around to mid-field and back to sweeper, and he played almost the whole game. For most of the second half, he was assigned to cover the opponent's best player -- a very strong, fast kid from Africa whose moves were a thing of beauty on the pitch.
However, against our redhead, he never got a shot off. They had two violent collisions, not intentional, and the younger fellow went flying. As a Dad, you always flinch when you see your kid go down that hard, but both times he bounced right back up and into the action.
Both times, he also beat the other kid to the ball and reversed its direction away from his goal before he hit the deck.
When it was over he and his teammates celebrated a 3-0 victory and then shook hands with the other team. Game One went to the good guys, and a certain redhead demonstrated to everyone present that even as a freshman, he belongs on the varsity squad.
Think I'm proud! This is a very restrained version of how I actually feel. This is straight reportage, while I'd rather write a press release!
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