Tuesday night lights

We just got back from a walk down memory lane, of sorts—at a high school soccer game.

There was a time in our family's history (actually, about 6 years worth of that history) when every Tuesday and Friday night in the first quarter of each year* was taken up with this activity. Tonight we were just casual spectators; certainly we wanted our team to win, but that incredibly intense personal connection that only parents of children playing team sports can appreciate was—thankfully—absent.

This morning's paper picked tonight's game, between our own Alamo Heights Mules and archrival Boerne, as the best bet for the week on the boys side. So, since we had an open evening, we decided to take it in. It turned out to be a very good game, exciting but with an emphasis on defense, just the way we like it. The final score was 0-0, but since it was the Mules' first tie, with no losses (in district play) it puts them in first place in the district.

We enjoyed watching the energetic and skillful young men playing where our son and daughter once played, met some of the current proud parents, and generally reveled in the pleasant, spring-like evening. Next week the girls are playing at home, and while they're not leading their district (we keep up with these things in the paper, although not quite as assiduously as when we knew all the goal-scorers mentioned) they're having a good season. So we'll have to come support them, too.

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*Unlike high school soccer in most civilized parts of the country, soccer here is played in the winter, which is most unfortunate since it runs almost concurrently with basketball, and often kids who like one of these sports like the other one, too. But playing both is practically impossible. (It's also very unfortunate for the poor soccer parents on those brutally cold winter evenings. Nothing makes you feel the cold more sharply than sitting for 90 minutes.) The reason for this travesty, I assume, has something to do with the other kind of football, which shares facilities with real football in this part of the country. And, for some strange reason, it takes precedence.

Below you can see part of the shared field. The yellow line extensions are for soccer, whose players don't need the yardage marked off but have to put up with it anyway. It's distracting at first, the kids tell us, but they eventually don't notice it. Still looks surreal to me, though.