The mind games experienced by an athlete.
As Yogi Berra once said, Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical. I wonder if the same can be said for soccer?
I have recently encountered a bizarre scenario with my son that has me baffled.
It’s such a perplexing dilemma, I’ve started calling my 11 year old: Bobby.
His name is not Bobby. It’s not Robert or Robby or Rob or even Bob.
So why am I calling my kid Bobby?
It’s kind of short for Zimbabwe.
Why have i nicknamed my youngest kid after this landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent?
Because he now plays soccer like an African child. And since the word Zimbabwe rolls off my tongue I started calling him Zimbabwe and now it’s just Bobby for short.
So back to the fact that he is playing soccer like an African child. What does that mean?
You know the picture on the front of the Sports Illustrated showing the African Children playing soccer. They are wearing rag tag clothes, kicking an old soccer ball through the red clay streets of Shanty Town Africa. Not a kid in the picture is wearing a pair of shoes.
African boys play soccer coming out of the womb. The womb does not sell Nike Cleats. And so the boys learn to run barefoot, and catch chickens, and they learn to play soccer barefoot.
My point is; African kids play soccer barefooted until someone at the local mission gives them a pair of “boots.” Until then, they build up callouses and condition their feet to be obdurate to pain, like a flesh pounding trip hammer.
Back to my middle class suburban white boy.
The summer of 2010 will from here on in be known as the summer sans shoes. I haven’t seen a shoe on the kid’s feet since he graduated from the fifth grade this past May.
Lately he’s been practicing on a new soccer net that is 8 feet high and 24 feet long. It is less a goal and more a vertical trampoline that catches the ball and rebounds it toward the shooter. It’s a great training tool for a young soccer player since it promotes a shot and demands a follow up kick.
I have been amazed at how accurate my son has become using this net. What I didn’t expect was the launching pad of TNT that his right foot has become. He is blasting the ball from 30 and 35 yards with velocity that I have never seen.
WHAP WHAP WHAP CRUNCH
I routinely ask him; “Doesn’t it hurt hitting the ball barefooted like that?”
He looks at me like I’m crazy, just like any African boy would.
“Wow, that is really some velocity,” the coach exclaimed.
“Go inside and get your cleats and let’s see you kick with them.”
So for the first time in months, Bobby laced up his soccer cleats.
I could tell he was uncomfortable. I could see fragile psyche pysching itself out. I could sense he was not happy as he flexed his foot and mushed his toes into the soul of the shoe.
He puts the ball down and strikes it.
THUD
“Try it again,” his coach says.
Bobby places the ball down and kicks.
THWACK
The ball gets a little more air, but it trickles into the net barely creating a ripple.
I am astounded.
I thought the cleat would only amplify the boy’s kicks. Instead, it’s like a fire hydrant being tightened down.
“It’s in your head,” the coach hollers.
“It’s not in my head,” Bobby says with an attitude that makes me think it is in his head.
And so it goes. The rest of training session is a wash out of scrubbed kicks and diminished velocity.
“I hate cleats,” Bobby says.
“Well little African Boy, you better find yourself a soccer leeg in the Serengeti, because the last time I checked, Franklin Tennessee soccer requires appropriate footwear.
“I don’t care,” Bobby blurts out ripping off his shoes and throwing them at the side of the garage.
“I hate cleats.”
He places the ball on the ground and
VROOOM-POP!
The ball explodes off his instep like a shoulder rocket being launched from a Taliban bad ass.
WOW
He looks at me like the defiant, confident African Lad he is.
He moves back 20 yards, and like a cocky David Becham he winds up.
BLAM
The ball scorches through the air and impacts forcefully in the top quadrant of the net.
“I hate cleats,” Bobby says defiantly.
Well you better climb inside that brain of yours and sort this out because in 2 weeks soccer camp starts and you are going to have to wear cleats.
Bobby walks off the back yard pitch, his feet stained green from grass.
I wonder if it’s the shoe or in his head.
I’ve got two weeks to transform Bobby or we’re going to find ourselves riding the pine, barefoot or not.
Life’s Crazy