A Day With Nothing But Bad Luck

The minute I got to the game today I had a bad feeling. When you've watched your kid play for so many (12) years, you know when something is wrong with him.

Even from way across the stadium, I could see that something was wrong with his left hand; he was holding it at a funny angle, and there was some sort of bandage or ice-pack attached to it.

I tried to get his attention but when I did he brushed me off.

That's when I knew for sure.

In any event, even if his hand was broken, which six and a half hours later I do not believe is the case, he would of course play the game.

Which he did.

But this was not to be one of the good days, the kind where you have a happy story to tell afterwards. Although he played well, his team's offense did not show up. And much like the deeply disappointing San Francisco Giants baseball team this season, his soccer team's offense is largely MIA.

They lost 0-1 to a vastly inferior team (by the numbers) and perhaps now their season, which started out so promising, is falling apart.

Or not.

Athletics is every bit as much about failure and recovery as it is success and consistency. An individual athlete playing a team sport has very little control over the outcome of any individual game -- all (s)he can do is do her very best and try to contribute.

Often, they have to play hurt, as #16 did today. He believed that a small bone at the base of his little finger was broken or dislocated, because it hurt so much. During one of the many collisions he sustained today, he winced and jumped around in obvious discomfort, shaking the hand again and again in order to try and make the pain calm down enough to keep playing on.

After it was over, dejected much more at losing than being hurt, he barely spoke a word on the long drive back home. We iced the hand, he took Ibuprofen, I felt it gingerly, trying to gauge where the pain was worst, and tried to evaluate how swollen it was.

After hours of this, my conclusion was it is probably a deep bone bruise, not a break. But I'm no doctor (and who can afford to go to them anyway these days?), so I think we will just hope for the best over the coming days.

There are really no words that can comfort a competitive athlete after a game like today's. His team faces a crisis of confidence and of leadership.

Whether they can find themselves in time is an open question -- next week they play two of the toughest teams in the city. Both routinely make mincemeat of the team they lost to today.

But that is what sports is like. Anyway who thinks it's easy hasn't played. And the longer you play, the higher level you reach, everything, including the competitive aspect, becomes magnified.

For now, we have to find a soft hand brace, so this injury doesn't interfere with our all-city defender's ability to continue to do his part -- win or lose -- as this season continues.

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