A giant leap for mankind

There are moments that restore your faith in humanity and order to the universe.  Saturday held one such moment for me.  I have two sons playing soccer this fall.  They are on the same team.  One is the next Pele.  The other can barely spell "soccer".  He's a bright and talented kid, just not at sports.  He joined the team only after his brother threatened him with physical violence, and hubby and I goaded him into it.  We needed him to have any sort of exercise.  So the season has progress as expected.  Mini-Pele has had a blast and looks great.  He shoots, he scores, he plays goalie like a pro.  No-so-Pele examines dandelions on the sidelines, yawns on the pitch, and lopes along after the ball when the coach notices and yells his name.  However, if this little guy inadvertently gets near the guy with the ball he suddenly becomes the Tasmanian Devil.  He snarls and snags and defends the ball as if his life depended on it.  It is a thing to behold.  This has earned him the nickname Tenacious T.  But this only lasts for a second or two and when/if the opposing player gets by him, he suddenly settles down and goes back to watching the clouds sail by.  It's like watching Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, only without the London fog.  Well, somehow a marvelous coach noticed this spasmodic, tenacious defense and wondered if it couldn't work on offence too.  Hmmmm.  So during practice he worked with little T to see what could be done and what do you know...T made a goal.  I dismissed this event as an extreme random occurrence but congratulated him anyway.  Then a parent's worst nightmare: the team decided that in the next game no boy would score until T had.  (Okay not WORST nightmare but still pretty icky)  What were they thinking?  My kid is the one stopping to tie his shoelaces in the middle of the game in the middle of the action!  My kid is the one that actually turned is back to the game in order to watch the geese on a pond in an adjoining field!  How much pressure do they think one kid can handle, never mind one mom?!  But he was pumped.  We sat through a pretty grueling half where I yelled out "wake up buddy" more then once.  Not a nice thing to yell at your kid I realize, I just got too worked up.  T had not scored although he had actually made a shot on goal.  This was more than I really thought possible so I prayed that they would just take him out, call it good and let the real soccer start.  What if they lost the game because my kid couldn't score?  No pressure, right?  Talented kids had had the opportunity to score and had instead passed the ball to T-man. They were continually setting up chances for him to take a shot but it had not yet paid off.  I was nearly stroking out.  The second half started and darn it if they didn't send my T right back in.  So now I began to pray in earnest.  I mean really pray.  All of the parents of the boys on our team knew what was going on as well and they were cheering for our guy.  His team members on the field also coxed and cheered him on.  His coach was a pillar of confidence and encouragement.  I wondered what the parents of the opposing team thought when everyone was cheering for one little boy.  I guess we looked nuts.  His name was being shouted from up and down each sideline and one mom was chewing her nails down to the quick.  The other team got wise to what was happening and now little T was being guarded by three guys that were unsympathetic to the humanitarian mission we were all on.  It looked hopeless and I was working on what I would say to the other parents when we all met up after the game.  Suddenly without warning, Tenacious broke his defenders, grabbed the pass they had placed for him, kicked to the corner and really truly SCORED!!!!  I jumped from my chair and began to scream my lungs out.  The whole sideline erupted with cheers and our team went wild.  I didn't know any of this because I was still screaming my lungs out.  You need to know that we are in a league where if you do more than a brief handclap you are a zealot.  I became zealot, heretic, lunatic, and the-mom-everyone-hates all in one blow.  I couldn't have cared less.  This was a blow for teamwork.  And a blow for all the bookworms whose moms force them outside for some fresh air.  Now our team was free to unleash the hounds, our other sweet son scored (no surprise there) and we won 5-0.  I kept it down after that.