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On an average day, I receive anywhere from 50 to 100 emails from readers. It's always interesting to see who is reading and what their thoughts are.
Over the past 14 years since I began covering soccer and creating soccer events, I've dealt with thousands of players. Some are now playing in the Premier League or with different national teams, many have become doctors or lawyers, while some have started their own business.
As I was rode the "Tube" to Wembley Stadium Wednesday night to watch the England National Team in its last 2010 World Cup Qualifier, I was checking my blackberry and came across this email from a player I covered in the late 1990s.
As soon as I was done reading it, I smiled and thought - this is really what it's all about.
Joe,
I'm not sure if you remember me, but my name is Michael Spongberg and I played for Shepard (graduated in 2000). I went on to play at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa from 2001-2004. I'm currently in the Army, stationed at Ft. Lewis, West Virginia and I am deployed to the Argandab Valley of Afghanistan.
I have just recently started reading about the soccer in the Southland again and have been disappointed. I'm not sure why I'm writing this email, could be the boredom of deployment. But the one thing that I wanted to let you know was about the kids here. I know all through my life, playing soccer always brought a joy to my face, even now as I'm about to reach my 30's (in the near future), there will always be a ball with me where I go. We have some humanitarian aide that we give out to the local nationals and they come to our AO with complaints. A man brought his kid, who couldn't be older than 12, we had a soccer ball that was being used as a dodge ball to wake up privates for guards shift.
I threw it to the kid and the smile on his face was priceless. He took off his sandals, created a goal and urged me to play goalie. As I played goalie for the next 15 minutes as his father, a couple of ANP (Afghan National Police) and some terps watched. His father told the terp that this is the first time he has seen his son smile since his mom was blown up by an IED. It made me realize that this game we call soccer, they call football, can always put a smile on anyone's face.
I let the kid keep the ball, he did score on me...so I guess it's only fair. But after my little game, I have bigger problems....I'm trying to tell the local national terps that I'm too tired to play goalie for them against the ANP.
If we could only get the rest of this country to quit worrying about other things in life and just play this game, maybe I wouldn't be writing this email from here.
Hope everything is going well for you.
Take care,
Sgt Michael Spongberg
Communications NCO
C.Co 1-17IN 5/2 SBCT
Fob Frontenac
APO AE 09355
- Joe Trost
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This why we call it "the beautiful game" .
Our sport crosses all boundaries and all conflicts. It reminds me of an event that occurred in World War I.
http://blog.corvallissoccerblog.com/2008/12/day-soccer-and-christmas-stopped-war.html
Gosh Joe.... We have something in common. It's been about 14 years since I started coaching soccer with my sons rec team and continued with my daughters competitive team. Now I just get to watch her high school team and club team play. Time flies.