A Beautiful Day for the Beautiful Game

This morning Number Three Son and I will head over to the John Hunt Soccer Complex for the opening matches of the Alabama State Soccer Championships. Huntsville has the best soccer complex in the state and has hosted the championships since 2001. This is an annual tradition for Number Three and me. He serves as a ball boy–excuse me, ball handler–and I volunteer to be a team host. As a host I work with a couple of visiting teams just making sure that they’re comfortable, find their way around and have everything they need to compete successfully.

What’s in it for me? Well, how about an “All Access” pass for starters! Having an All Access pass at the state soccer championships is at least as good as a back-stage pass at a Spinal Tap concert. This means I can go anywhere I like, including the bench area located between the two world-class soccer pitches (those are soccer fields for the uninitiated) where I get a “behind-the-scenes” look at the action, including the ability to stand in one spot and rotate, taking in two games at once. I also get to visit the hospitality room, which means I get all the Diet Coke, fruit and munchies that a middle-age soccer aficionado could ever want.

Excuse me, is this heaven? No, it’s the Final Four of Alabama high school soccer on a sunny, 70 degree day in Huntsville!

The only down side is that Number One’s (#16 in the picture) team, the Grissom Tigers, were knocked out of the playoffs in the first round. Ranked number one in the state going in and the odds-on favorite to win it all, they lost a heartbreaking 4-3 decision in OT to rival Mountain Brook. They dug themselves a hole early going down 3-1, so we were proud of the way they fought back. Unfortunately, our defenders’ legs were a little rubbery in OT and we just didn’t quite have enough to finish. Next year, with 12 seniors returning, we hope to be playing in the Final Four before a hometown crowd. Still, at 24-4 on the season, you can’t complain too much.

On the upside, the Grissom girls team played through to the Final Four (Go Lady Tigers!), and other Huntsville area teams playing include the Huntsville High girls team and both the boys and girls teams from Randolph School.

Indeed, it’s a beautiful day for the “beautiful game.”
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Speaking of Huntsville High, I wanted to give you an update on my post from earlier this week, Fast Times at Huntsville High. As far as I can tell from my highly-placed sources (heh), this is starting to settle down and apparently both the students and parents involved are accepting their punishment without any loud wails of protest.

In addition to not receiving their diplomas until they complete their 100 hours of community service to the homeless, the school will also withhold their final transcripts as well. Keep in mind that college acceptances are typically “conditional” on completing the year in good standing. So, this may place some of the pranksters in the awkward position of having to explain to colleges what happened and why they aren’t able to provide them with their final grades. Hopefully, all this will put a little crimp in that annoying swagger we witnessed early on in this sordid business.

Just like my piece on Nancy Grace and Churches of Christ, my Monday post was picked up by an internet “news outlet,” and as a result I’ve been receiving quite a few first-time visitors this week. Sploid.com seems to me to be the internet equivalent of The National Enquirer. Their mission statement, such as it is, reads like this:

“SPLOID delivers the tabloid breaking news you crave: fresh disasters, strange crimes, political scandal, odd characters, bizarre phenomena, freakish animals, horrifying conspiracies, goofy do-gooders, police idiocy and all the government-gone-wild insanity you can handle.”

I think that pretty much says it all. The piece they did on the senior prank (beware that it contains a graphic image of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib) is full of innuendo and half-truths and finishes with a very gratuitous slam at the state of Alabama–all in all, typical slipshod tabloid fare. The link to my post can be found at the phrase “acts of depravity.”

I’m not sure how I feel about becoming a part of the “media landscape,” much less a link in a tabloid hack job. I guess the upside is that those who are clicking on the link and reading my post are getting a little more even-handed and balanced view of the situation from someone who is actually there on the scene. I can assure our northernly neighbors that we can handle such situations and take care of our own. I know it’s not good news, but look around–you’ve got a few problems too. Mind your own business you bunch of carpetbaggers, ya hear?

That’s all from Huntsville, where the men are decked out in polo shirts and khakis, the women wear way too much makeup, and the children are overscheduled, overstimulated and overachieving.