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Health & Fitness

Featured Blog: Fall Soccer: The Enduring Heart of Los Gatos

The impact of the Los Gatos United Soccer League in our autumn lives.

On Saturday, Los Gatos single father Michael Whittaker starts his day at 6 a.m. While friends and neighbors are escaping to an early tee time or clicking into road bikes, he is loading up his car with soccer balls, water bottles, team banners and his three children.

During the next 12 hours, he will be present at as many as five soccer games with the possibility of an additional four the following day, coaching or assistant coaching every single one of them. Taking in nine soccer games in a two-day period might sound like insanity to most, and on some weekends it certainly feels like it, but Whittaker is simply one of hundreds of parents who are part of the local youth sporting tradition that is the Los Gatos United Soccer League.

It has been almost 20 years since I started my soccer experience as a scrawny redhead on my rec team, the Arrows, in Los Gatos. Of all the years I played, it was that first year that has stuck with me the most over a soccer career that took me playing abroad and through college. My coach's name was Halim and his love for the game was infectious, lighting inside our young hearts an eternal fire of affection for the game. Even as a boy I secretly hoped to one day grow up and be able to coach a team of my own and be as cool as our coach Halim had seemed to us.

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Having recently returned to Los Gatos, I was pleased to see that the LGUSL has grown in leaps and bounds since my first days on the pitch. Every fall more than 1,200 kids are coached on more than 100 teams in the recreational program, with hundreds more participating on more competitive levels.

This is a massive undertaking that requires parent involvement and a volunteer force of great effort to pull off each season. Being unmarried, and still pretty young, I was a little shocked when I was asked by recreational commissioner Wendy Riggs to coach two teams for Los Gatos this season. I was excited and a little skeptical at the prospect of having two teams to coach. However, Wendy confidently assured me, that she too coached a team while still in college and had no kids on the team.

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With that, I became the head coach of boys' teams of 7 and 9 years old. Many of the parents looked at me like I had my head screwed on not quite right for coaching a team I had no kids on, but I assured them I wasn't crazy ... yet. The first thing I realized when having a couple casual practices with my teams, is that they are going to be A LOT of fun, and also quite the handful.

The disparity in skill can be quite diverse. There are young players kicking a ball for the first time, tripping over the painted lines, and others who play with the agility and body control of any seasoned athlete. I knew that at the Under 7 age, soccer games usually resemble a rugby scrum swarming around the ball and field like bees, kicking together in packs around the ball, with parents shouting cries of “pass!” and “do something different!” While my Lizards team has been working since day one on not playing bumble ball, we, too, are not perfectly successful at it.

It is in these moments of scrumming kicks and flailing legs that someone like Lizards' player Jake Clevenger might make a move. Jake is the smallest guy on the Lizards team and probably one of the tiniest in the league. Not just short, he is also slightly built, reminiscent of Barca's Lionel Messi with the same handsome face, piercing eyes and shaggy hair.

Like Messi, Jake is easily one of the most accomplished 6 year-olds in the league and too innocent to not be afraid when he attacks so aggressively. An opposing coach yelled at me to “Enjoy him while you can,” as he watched Jake dribble through three opposing players and punch in a second goal for the day. This dig from the opposing coach was to remind me that players like Jake don't stick around long on the Rec level in the league.

Where does Jake get his finesse on the pitch? It runs in the family. Owen, the older brother, is already playing on a comp team at age 9 and is a phenomenally smart player in his own right. Their mother, Kristine Clevenger, sites the close bond the boys have, which allows Jake to study and play with older and more advanced players all the time with and through Owen.

My team of older boys are the under-9 Meteors. They are a crazy pack of hyenas who like to joke and laugh as much as they like soccer. Fortunately, I have a well-seasoned assistant coach in Don Welter whose son Ryan is also on the team. Like Whittaker, Don also is on the staff of another son's soccer team. These are committed parents. When asked about his own involvement, Don says, “It's fun to watch kids grow during a younger age and when it's your own kids it's that much more special. Soccer is a life long sport."

Sharon Hinson, the mother of all-around awesome player Chase, says, “I know my son loves the game. It's good for him, it's healthy.” When asked if she would consider letting Chase try out for the competitive-level teams that can often take much more time and money, she said, “Absolutely. It's his decision and we will support him in all his success."

One other standout has to be mentioned, Tommy Splaine. His incredible stamina on the field was evident immediately. His maturity at practice is constant in his desire to do what the coaches want and help out his fellow players. I was thinking about all of these things after a fantastic game in which he played and scored multiple goals. I looked at Tommy's red cheeks and congratulated him on the game. Little did I know that while that was his only soccer game for the day, he then had to go to football practice, and then later play in a baseball game.

Basketball is soon on the docket once baseball is over. Now before parents jump all over his parents for over pushing the kid or forcing him into too many sports, think about this. I played five sports growing up competitively and went on to play two more in college. There was a time when playing, to kids, really meant playing.

Teague Splaine, Tommy's father, says, “Tommy loves to play sports even when he is on his own free time just to play.” Watch Tommy play one game, and you realize why every sport wants to get a piece of Tommy. He is big, fast, athletic, and mature as any athlete 5 years older. Unfortunately, Tommy will probably fall victim to one of the most harrowing statistics in development U.S. soccer. Sixty percent of all players quit by the age of 12. His dad informed me that his son is “probably playing traveling baseball next year and it would be difficult to do soccer at the same time.” While it is a loss for the game of soccer, it is simply the preferred sport for Tommy right now.

And that is what I have found to be the sustaining spirit here in Los Gatos Soccer; parents who are truly invested and involved with their children at a young age. I look at these kids and the parents they come from. They might not be perfect families, but in a world that is always blasting the demise of family values, and campaigns about child obesity, it might best serve those with such trumpets to take a drive over to , Carlton, or Noddin on any given Saturday. You will see a small circus of soccer in our feel-good town rise up and cheer for sons and daughters and all will be right with the world. Today anyway.    

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