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One embarrassing moment to remember

(No) regrets

By James M. PiehlPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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As far as purely embarrassing goes, I think back to youth soccer and a truly bone headed moment comes to memory. In case you didn't know the term bone headed is a description of neanderthalic thinking or lack of thought. A bit of caveman simplicity of thought that lacks much thought involved. It comes from pterodactyl who had a large femur-like bone sticking up from their head. I played soccer as a kid and enjoyed the exercise. The fresh air, the sunshine, the field of play. I began playing soccer when I was four or five years old. I was an Aztec. We had bright yellow and white uniforms and I loved being an Aztec. I loved my uniform and it even sort of matched my bright blonde hair. I even bought an Aztec calendar necklace on a school trip to a science museum in grade school. I played soccer in the town league for many years but I began transitioning to football in seventh grade. I played football for our high school but still played soccer for the town at the same time. A lot of times I would go directly from football practice to soccer practice and in eighth grade it was still the same. One sunny afternoon, in soccer, I dribbled the ball toward the corner just outside the goalie box. I had my head down a bit watching the movement of the ball as I drove it past some of the other players. When I looked up I had broken into the clear and I paused their in the open with the ball but now several players were rushing toward me and the space was getting smaller. As they were closing the distance rapidly, I searched for my teammates couldn't see any of them, so, without much thought, I did what made so much sense to me to keep the ball safe right then. I simply bent down and picked it up. As soon as I stood entirely upright again I dropped the ball before the referees whistle even blew. As the ball was falling the whistle blew and I was already turned back up field walking away. Everyone was speechless just watching me in my wide-eyed retreat. I walked up to the sideline and right off the field. I said, "Coach, someone needs to go in for me. I think I was thinking in football terms. Maybe coming here right after football practice isn't going to work anymore. That is just embarrassing. What was I going to run it into the goal past the goalie for a touchdown? I gonna take a break." He just laughed a little bit and said "What were you thinking of football?" And I said, "Yes, I think so." I'll never forget that. You can pretty much use every part of your body in soccer just not your hands. There is inadvertent handball where the ball accidentally strikes your hand but I went out of my way to take the time to bend down and just pick it up in both hands. I was not mentally with it on that play. There is no handball more obvious than that. So in my confusion I stayed on the sidelines for awhile lost in thought. I had played soccer since I was like four or five years old. The most important "no-no, never" that you are taught is just don't use your hands unless you are the goalie. To think of it now, it was all of those things but also I had some new family members as well. In eight grade I had a one year old niece and a new born nephew, so, all in all I don't think my thinking was out of line considering precious cargo, to keep those new little additions safe but on the soccer field you aren't going to get very far if you are breaking a rule as fundamental as just don't use your hands. Soccer is made to use your feet that's why Europeans and the world outside the United States call it football. There's a lesson in that somewhere otherwise it is just a purely unthinking moment of the most obvious hand ball there might have ever been in Soccer.

Embarrassment
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James M. Piehl

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