Watching Matt

Watching Matt play sports: Not always easy, not always kind, but usually good and with a dynamite ending.

We often cringed at his very young age soccer games when he stood planted in one spot, only to move from there when the ball approached him. His soccer career peaked early when he scored his first and last goal at the age of six. He kicked the ball off from mid-field, from whence it rolled past several distracted meandering boys and through the goal...a total distance of about 15 yards.


We later agonized for him as a first grade basketball player when the game was stopped while the coach tied his shoe for him. He just didn't have that psychomotor skill yet. We fumed five years and three schools later when, with shoes now securely tied, he waved his arms wide open under the basket yet no one would pass him the ball. He was the military kid, the new kid, and these boys had played together since first grade. He wore the same uniform as they, but he was never really on their team.


In baseball he played for the Marlins, the White Sox, and the Cubs. The high point of his baseball career was when his team won the league championship and got to be on the field at Harbor Park with the Norfolk Tides. He never quite mastered the "bat off the shoulder" approach to hitting, but he relished his first winning team.

Later in Bethesda a Navy pediatrician suggested that he try karate. The discipline and routine of martial arts would not only help his psychomotor coordination skills, but would also assist his focus ability. Indeed, he excelled and moved quickly through the ranks. He attended two different schools in two different cities in two different states, each with its own philosophy and style. In Norfolk he met one of the best coaches he would ever have in any sport...a man who inspires and instills self-confidence through competence and dedication. 

But Matt is a military kid, after all. He moved to Japan before he completed the course that would surely have earned him a black belt. 


When he got to Japan and started high school he elected to forego his martial arts career to play football. Football? Had he ever seen a game, let alone touched an actual football? "Never mind," said we. We are not star-struck sports parents. We don't expect to fund our retirement with his major league salary. We just want him to have fun and fully tap whatever potential he wants. So, okay, football it is. He tried out for the JV team as a freshman. He got cut. Cut!?! That had never happened before at this DoD high school. They had never cut anyone...until that year. He was one of only four boys, all new to the school, who didn't get to join the team.

So he just went and got a varsity letter instead. A wonderful man who worked for me arranged for Matt to join the varsity as team photographer. He excelled. His films were used to market graduating seniors for football scholarships. He earned that varsity letter without ever taking a hit on the field. More cogently, he studied and learned the sport.


The next year he eschewed the video camera for another shot at playing the actual game. He gutted it out and landed a spot on the JV team. The season was one of his best in any sport. He impressed his coaches with his spirit, dedication, and enthusiasm. By the end of the season, after only partial playing time on defense and special teams, he achieved his pre-season goal of playing wide receiver.

The spring of his freshman year he ran track, "to get in shape for football." The next year he ran track again, because he liked it. As a recreational runner myself, I truly admired his willingness and dedication to compete against himself, to constantly strive for a better time. Perseverance.

But, he is a military child. For his junior year he moved from a DoD school in Japan with 300 students to a Catholic high school in Virginia with 1300 students. Most of those had known each other for years, and did not readily welcome new kids into their inner circles. It was not an auspicious year. He didn't even consider football. Instead, he ran cross-country, and his times steadily improved as the season rolled on. That year, in addition to ubiquitous mom and dad, his sister got to watch him too.

And then Fortune smiled on the entire family when we got to return to Japan for his senior year. He made the varsity football team. In professional or NCAA parlance, it was a "rebuilding year." Not as much fun as that winning JV season. Dad was deployed for most of the season, but did manage to catch one game by riding the Shinkansen all the way to Misawa and back over a brief labor day port period. Would do it again. Would love to have the chance to do it again.

Now, with graduation and a move on to college looming, this era draws inexorably to a close as Matt achieves a new level of personal excellence in his final season of his final high school sport, track. Consistently bettering his times in the 800 and 1500 yard events, he peaked by setting personal records in both events at the last meet, the last event, the last sport that his parents will likely ever get to see him play.

So just like that, it ends. That six-year old boy who accidentally kicked a soccer ball through a miniature goal 12 years ago is now a young man standing on a podium receiving his ribbon. In the interim he's attended 8 different schools in 3 different states and 2 countries. He has played six different sports with varying degrees of success and acceptance. He's felt that proverbial agony of defeat and thrill of victory. He's been very up and very down and all stages in between. 


Through those years he never once gave up, never once quit trying, never once quit learning, and never once quit believing in himself and his ability to achieve his goal. I call that commitment, and I call it courage. And, Matt, of whom I am as proud as a father can be, I call a WINNER!