Fever Pitch

I wish I had never quit playing soccer when I was 14. Yes, I'd probably still miss it now, even if I'd played right through age 18. The thing that gets me every time I get back out on a soccer field, though, is that I have no idea why I quit. All I remember is that I just didn't try out as a sophomore.


I have had a few returns to the field: I played intramural soccer in undergrad, I played pick-up soccer on Friday afternoons when I taught at Northern, and yesterday I joined my fellow English grad students in an IM game on campus. I'm upset that our "season" only consists of two games.

Yesterday we were definitely outmatched. I knew we were in trouble when I heard a British sounding guy call it "football." If you call it soccer, I believe you're automatically at a disadvantage. I don't remember the score. We didn't score any goals, and they scored several.

But Billy came to watch, and it was a beautiful day, and I got to run around and kick the ball. One time I even had enough of an opening to begin to dribble upfield, but then it was like I forgot what I was doing and I lost the ball almost immediately. Billy says I knocked a girl down. I really think she tripped over the ball I was kicking. I was making a concentrated effort to keep my elbows in.

And have you ever played on this FieldTurf? Evidently, when you attend a large university with a prestigious athletic program, even the intramural teams get to use nice facilities. I am wondering, though, how long I will be finding rubber pellets in my shoes. Billy and I decided that football players, who tackle one another on this stuff, must be perpetually clogging their drains with these pellets.

The day was made even better by the fact that before I left for the game, I had pieced together a decent draft of a paper on The Golden Apples and I had already finished reading Clotel, so my homework was almost entirely done. Some days I really love you, graduate school.

And I love you, too, sunshine. Thanks for the visit. Stay as long as you like, and please come back again soon.

(Fever Pitch was Nick Hornby's memoir about what it means to be a desperately devoted soccer fan long before it was a mediocre baseball-themed romantic comedy. It was also first made into a soccer movie. But read the book: you won't regret it.)