Canter Bridge

Tonight the number one soccer team in the state of Indiana beat the number two team and will likely wrap up the state championship after a few more perfunctory victories.

Unfortunately, the number two team is the North Central High School defending state champion team on which my son John plays left midfielder.

I want to tell a little bit of this young man’s story.

Three years ago, John and his older brother Christopher courageously gave their assent to tearing up roots in Costa Rica that they had established with some real pain and effort after returning from a four-year stint in England just a few years earlier. When we moved back to Costa Rica from England in 1999, we told the boys that we would let them finish out their high school years in one place and give them veto power over any unexpected option to move that might come up.

When Linda and I came to the conclusion that the move to Overseas Council International looked to be the wise choice, we talked it over with the boys. We reminded them of our promise to move only with their consent. After some deliberation, they both agreed to make yet another change.

We located in Washington Township because of North Central High School’s brilliant soccer program and reputation for strong academics. When we arrived in Indianapolis in the summer of 2004, John was a sophomore walk-on to Indiana’s premier high school soccer team. The other guys had played together for years. John played his heart out that summer and won a spot on the team. Always modest about his formidable abilities, he thought he’d made the Junior Varsity team until he was handed a Varsity jersey for the team photo.

Only a year later did we come to understand that nobody walks on to this program as a newbie. Without all the years of club soccer and rising in the system, John had achieved a major personal victory and we hadn’t even realized!

John had to learn a whole new American style of play. It was not easy to unlearn the flamboyant and individual Latin American breed of soccer in order to fit into a coordinated team attack. He was giving up something he’d worked hard to perfect in order to fit into a new game plan.

Because John lacks the explosive speed of many of his peers, he worked twelve months a year, six days a week, to chisel his body into its muscular athleticism and to boost his speed by methodically strengthening his legs. His discipline in weight and speed training was astonishing. I have never seen a high school athlete work as hard.

Month by month, his times came down as his strength and speed increased.

All this time, John was studying hard and keeping his place in the top 5% of his class. Even better, his spiritual disciplines and amiable nature stayed intact.

After a number of seniors from last year’s state championship team graduated, John seized the chance to move up to a starting position. His work ethic and solid character won the admiration of his teammates, coaches, and North Central fans. Linda and I could scarcely contain our pride, though I alone gave up trying by the time the regular season began.

To watch John play this year has been one of the great joys of my life.

Tonight, we were eliminated by a better team. We played our hearts out and John had perhaps his grittiest game of the season, the last of his high school career. It’s hard for us to comprehend that it’s over.

If I know my son, he’ll be out in a few days with a workout and playing schedule that will get him onto the college team of his choice.

Before all that happens, I want to mingle my own fatherly statement of pride and admiration with the tears of these young athletes who—as their coach is fond of saying—might get beat but will never be outrun.

They ran so very well.

Youth is precarious and bedeviled with opportunity for self-destruction. We all know how many of our young men and women throw away immeasurable possibilities for all kinds of cheap thrills and the siren song of mediocrity.

So when high school athletes like John and the polite young men who are his teammates provide us a glimpse of excellence, we ought to stop, applaud, and overcome our embarrassment long enough to say, ‘Way to go, guys!’

Way to go, John! You did us proud.