Winners Never Do Lose, Actually

After a night where we lost an hour, which made morning come before we were ready for it, we drove out of a city coated with dew, cool, foggy, and soft, like a lovely woman just arising from sleep.

Across the mighty Bay Bridge, buttressed by planks where workers are slowly preparing to replace its damaged eastern span with a replacement rising silently to its north, we entered the vast East Bay.

If you do not know the Bay Area, this is where all the population is. San Francisco is a relatively tiny city anchoring a monstrously huge suburban sprawl to its east and south, with a sparsely populated paradise to its north.

This is a place where cities are built on mountain ranges, so we have numerous tunnels in all directions. As you migrate from the coastal side of the East Bay, past Oakland and Berkeley, you enter an old tunnel called the Caldecott cut out of granite.

Far below the peak you drive through the blackness until you emerge into what to some eyes would be a lovely, hilly, tree-filled valley, and eventually to a town called Concord.

Our road-tripping ended just beyond Concord for today's concluding matches of the Diablo Cup. Our guys got overwhelmed by a superior team, and afterward, at lunch at an Appleby's, I was once again surprised by my son's demeanor.

"I'm proud of our weekend -- two good wins yesterday -- and there was just no way we are able yet to handle a team like we faced today," he said calmly.

In fact, though it may be hard to imagine after an 0-6 loss, he knew he had played very well himself. For the entire second half he was back as the center back, alone in front of his keeper against the onslaught of a much more experienced set of strikers who blasted shot after shot from all angles.

Not a shot got by him in the center, and he both took and dished out some pretty hard hits.

He's stiff tonight -- three tournament games in a weekend, plus a scrimmage Friday night and his second coaching session with the girls. That's a lot of soccer for anybody to manage, even one in peak physical condition, which he is.

***

How can I write or even think about anything but Japan and the suffering endured by those caught in the aftermath of one of the worst natural disasters in history. The scars on that country will endure for decades, as will the deep debts the nation incurs as it cleans up and rebuilds after this tragedy.

The fact is they have to go on, and so do we all, no matter what blows we suffer. After lunch, as my player rested in the passenger seat as we made our way back through that valley and the tunnel and the East Bay cities, and the big bridge, and into our home town, I was reflecting once again upon how an excellent sports program prepares a young person for the vicissitudes of life.

I have no idea at this point how far his soccer career will take him, or, of course, whether I will be here to witness it all as it unfolds.

But I do know this:

This kid knows how to win and he knows how to lose and he knows the difference. After a loss that you might expect to have shattered his confidence, nothing of the sort is true.

In fact, he's already looking forward to the next time he gets to take them on.

-30-