How the Games are Played (Inside)

Back to School Night for my high school senior, the last one of his four years at Balboa High School. All the principal, assistant principal and other parents wanted to talk about was my son's horrific head-to-head collision on the soccer pitch a week ago tonight.

"You could hear it from the stands," the principal told me, "the sound of their heads crashing together."

As it turns out, the other boy was knocked out by the force of their collision, and required 15 stitches; Aidan required eight. As far as we know no one suffered a concussion or other brain trauma, but it had to have been at the least a very jarring hit for both of them.

Aidan got his stitches out yesterday and is cleared to resume playing soccer next week.

"We need him," the principal told me.

The team is 1-3-1 with 7 games to go. I guaranteed the principal the team will still make the playoffs this year, even though the odds seem extremely remote.

That's because I expect Aidan, as a captain of this team and a senior, to emerge as a leader. It's his time. I know what he's made of. I believe in him.

I know that the odds are long. They have to win at least 6 of the last 7.

***

Sitting in the chairs he sits in, day after day, listening to the teachers he listens to, I experienced a sort of replica of my son 's school days tonight. It is an odd feeling -- being as if you are your child.

And, to a certain extent, the teachers treat you as if you are your child.

Which is fine.

I can see that his ambitious plan to take two AP courses this fall has created a serious strain on him. These are college level courses, in Statistics and English Composition that require a level of critical thinking he has not encountered up until now, but that he will of course need to develop by the time he is in college.

It's at times like these that you feel the vulnerability of your child.

No one prepared him for this!

Of course, no one prepared any of us for the realities of life.

His academic preparations are what they are, the result of these times, this place, the budget cuts, his presence in a nearly bankrupt school system, our family's lack of resources.

Then again, he is a star athlete, and by that, I mean a natural competitor. Maybe in the end soccer will be his ally not only on the field, under the sun, but in the classroom, where he needs to learn to work just as hard to be great.

I hope so.

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