I began playing soccer when I was very young - Norwin Tiny Kickers. I guess it was my mother's means of exhausting some of the pent up energy I stored as a kid and to catch a break from having to hear me talk to anyone that would listen. Ultimately, it was a win-win for my mother and an added bonus that I actually excelled in sports - specifically, soccer. The only problem was that much like everywhere else I went as a child, I was freakishly taller than the majority of my teammates on the field. It was on a soccer field, at the age of 10, that I was called a bitch for the first time in my life (while it was the first, it definitely would not be the last). Not only was it the first time I had been coined that term of endearment, but even better than that, it is was by a father of a girl that also happened to be the coach of the opposing team. Due to the fact that I was abnormally tall, I was immediately singled out to play as a goalie. In the net, my abnormality became a commodity. However, before I was banished to the goalie box for the remainder of my soccer career, I was allowed out on the field from time to time (mostly because in the younger age groups it was an unspoken rule that the positions should be rotated so that everyone could learn each position and how to play it). During those early years, one of my favorite soccer coaches to this day (we'll call him Ace), coined me with my first sporting nickname - The Unguided Missile. I took pride in my new found name and embraced it with everything I had, including my giant feet and my gargantuan height. While I was still too young to really understand and embrace the art of "playing dirty", my gangliness and lack of coordination, coupled with my size made me an instant target to the referees. I'm pretty sure that I was every opposing teams MVP for the number of fouls that got called on me simply because a girl on the other team would run into me and immediately fall over like they'd ran into a brick wall. Which is exactly what happened the first time I was called a bitch.
What ensued after that though, was not something I could have ever anticipated or even dreamt. As I was helping the puddle of a girl up in front of me, with her coach/father hovering over both of us, red-faced and screaming at the referee to "get that GIANT BITCH off of the field before she hurts someone" in reference to me; my mother swooped in from the sidelines like a ninja and placed herself between myself and the coach/father. Now, anyone who knows my mother can vouch that she is a generally, well dispositioned individual and at times probably too nice - even to people that aren't deserving of this type of treatment. Moreso, anyone who has watched the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet and has seen footage of a mother of any type (human, animal, etc.) protect her young knows how this scenario played out. The verbal beat down of a grown man that happened right in front of my bewildered eyes was one of the most powerful forms of verbal diarrhea I have ever experienced! It was absolutely beautiful. My mother, a woman who at one time was sent to bed without dessert for using the word "fart" at the dinner table as a young girl, had sewn together the most beautiful tapestry of four-letter words that single-handedly made a grown man wish that instead of coming to the soccer fields that Sunday morning he had headed straight to church - because by the time she was through chewing him up and spitting him out, only Jesus could've saved him. It was from that moment forward I learned to never call either of my sisters a bitch (because I never wanted to have that type of wrath turned on me). Not only that, I made it my personal vow in life to take on this vulgar style of verbal punishment when anyone or anything tried to hurt anyone that I valued - friend or family. It was also at that moment that my mother decided (whether it was in my best interest, or her best interest can still be contested) I would be playing up one age group in soccer and my coaches decided that the goalie box was the best position for me.
After moving up one age group, being confined to the goalie box and being renamed Aminal (I know it looks like a typo, but trust that indeed that reads A-M-I-N-A-L. Teen girls, thinking it was cute - what can I say?), I more or less embraced being a goalie. If I'm honest, I had a love/hate relationship with being a goalie. I loved the credit given for a shut-out or a win, but I hated the stress, self loathing and shame that accompanied a loss. Therefore, it was very typical, in my early years of being more or less forced into the goalie position, to find me crying like I had just witnessed my puppy being shot before every game when my coach would inform me that I'd be starting in goal. This became a regular Sunday ritual. I think it drove both my mother and my coaches absolutely crazy. In hindsight, it had to have been worthy of a good chuckle, at the bare minimum, to see a freakishly tall "athlete" with ape like arms and hands, over-dramatically crying about playing in goal. Nonetheless, it wasn't until I finally realized the power that came with being a goalie that I really came to as a true Keystone State Cup Games invited goalie. As a goalie, my height was praised. The size of my hands and my impressive wingspan were admired. The fact that I feared nothing that came at me - both people and shots on goal - was worshipped. Compromising my own body's well being to refrain from letting a goal be scored was exactly what the crowd loved to watch. Coaches, parents, teammates and even opposing teams put my skills on a pedestal. When a teen is faced with that level of deity-like praise, it tends to inflate your head. Not only did it do that, but it also created a new level of competitiveness that my mother didn't know how to control.
It was actually in one of those Hercules-like moments, during a championship game at a tournament in Plum that I had one of the only serious soccer-induced injuries of my career. We had snaked our way into the finals through a shoot-out in semi-finals - where, once again, my skills had proven worthy of my status. However, I did cry before the shoot out because I knew that if we didn't make finals it would sit on no one else's shoulders but mine. I mean, honestly, it's me and the 5 girls selected from the opposing team to take me on. One by one they come at you, just me and my goalie gloves in a net that didn't seem so big 10 minutes ago but now seems like an abyss. In my defense, that's a lot for a teen to have to come to terms with. Nonetheless, my mom and my coaches were not entertained with this setback - considering I hadn't pulled the cry before a game in quite some time, let alone in the semi-finals. Despite my tears of fear and anxiety, I pulled it together and managed to block 4 of the 5 shots which advanced us to finals.
To say that the finals game against Plum was difficult, would be an understatement. It was in the middle of summer and about 100 degrees, plus we had already played 2 other games that day. There were about 12 minutes left in the second 30-minute half and we were up by 1 point. I don't know what happened to my typically stellar defense, but somehow an offensive forward powered through and was on a break away. These were the moments I waited for and usually shined in. One-on-one and she was trying to break into MY HOUSE. Bad idea. By this point, I was 13 years old and not only had I learned and embraced how to "play dirty", but I had mastered it to the point where it looked like they had played me dirty. As she was breaking away, I started to analyze her dribble (which was not nearly as close as it should have been to maintain control and screamed of anxious nerves and fear) and then I started to close the gap between her and myself. Like a predator analyzes every move of it's prey, that was how I played in goal. I began to rush her - minding the gap as well as the confinements of my goalie box - and at the last minute I full-out laid out on her sloppy dribbling. When my hands made contact with the ball, my thumbs were extended and right behind the main face of the ball. It was at that very moment, I saw her foot make contact with the ball that was already in my hands. Then I heard it - CRACK. Tears instantly welled up in my eyes and a sheen of sweat popped up on my forhead. The referee blew the whistle and made some call about roughing/charging the goalie and I got up from the ground. I called my sweeper back to take the kick so that I could gather myself, but I refused to look down. As tears continued to roll down my cheeks, I could hear my mother on the sidelines sreaming at the top of her lungs, "SUCK IT UP, STEPHANIE! STOP CRYING LIKE A BABY! THEY DIDN'T SCORE! THE GAME IS STILL GOING ON! GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR BUTT AND GET IT TOGETHER! GET YOUR HEAD BACK IN THE GAME!" Nothing like your mother basically screaming that you're a pansy from the sideline to motivate you.
Nonetheless, I guess what they say about the "boy who cried wolf is true". I knew without ever looking down that my thumb was broke, but I didn't take a knee. My mother thought I was being some kind of drama queen because I cried the remainder of the game. I heard her say a few more unpleasantries in my direction, but I played out the last 10 minutes of that game and when the referee blew his whistle to indicate that the game was over, while the rest of my teammates rushed to the sideline to celebrate a championship I fell to my knees and finally looked down. There was blood coming out of my goalie glove and my hand was so swollen I couldn't get my glove off. I felt like I was going to pass out and still, no one had come over to me. Finally, my coach realized I was kneeling on the ground and ran out to me. At that point, my NURSE mother came running over and had to cut my glove off of my hand. My thumb looked like it was compound fractured and my skin was ripped to the bone at my first knuckle. After a trip the ER, it ended up being merely a few clean breaks, that needed a butterfly stitch and a splint (and years of emotional therapy).
In my mother's defense, she felt awful once she realized why I was crying and that my thumb was actually broken. However, she then also yelled at me for not taking a knee and being so stupid and finishing the game. Fair trade-off, I suppose. If only I could have recalled my mother's words of encouragement during my first kiss...
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