Sports Are Everything: A Soccer Atheist Becomes Born Again

Lots of people say that sports get too much attention. But to me, they’re the only things that have consistently made sense — and they’ve mirrored a lot of events and philosophies in my life. This feature comes from years of writings, discussions and plain old sitting around and thinking about what sports means to me.  In this edition, which is a rough cut from a potential book, I talk about becoming a soccer fan.

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In 2010, I ate eel.

For context as to why this is a big deal, I’m a picky eater. I’ve pushed away entire plates of food if I caught an onion on them. Sometimes eggs work for me, sometimes not, and I don’t know until I dig into them. Green peppers, celery (a completely worthless food, by the way), liver, pizza with way-too-white cheese … they all belong in my axis of food evil. I usually stick to the basics because I want to know what I’m getting into. And it makes me a nightmare to go out eating with.

So when I not only ordered the slimy, fatty sea-snake thing at a Japanese restaurant in South Dakota, but also actually dug in and ate, it was an Earth-moving victory for me. Total adventurousness. Not concerned that I might waste many dollars on food I might not finish.

And darned if it wasn’t good stuff.

It came during a time when I was being more daring than ever – challenging myself, never taking the easy way out, understanding that failure was waiting for me at all times. Nothing symbolized this change more than my becoming a fan of Liverpool Football Club.

Soccer never was something I warmed to. Sure, I had lunchbox of soccer-star Pele when I was in early grade school. But per Mom, it was because the only other choice at the local store was a princess one. And heaven forbid I show my feminine side at that stage of my macho-ness.

Through the years it always was basketball, football or baseball in some order. Hockey poked its head in once in a while, but there was never enough of a local presence. Soccer had even less; hockey actually was mentioned in sports magazines or the newspaper once in a while. The only soccer I ever saw or read about was the 1986 World Cup with Argentinian great Maradona. Saw a little bit of it on TV, and while it wasn’t rip-roaring fun, it wasn’t bad, either. But then soccer left TV for many years. Kix cereal also ran a promotion with the American pro-soccer teams of the early 1980s, but I don’t’ remember them ever being on TV, so it was hard to get going with them.

What started changing was coming to Sioux Falls in 2004. And I was there because of then-girlfriend, now-wife, who suffered with me through a lot of outdoor sporting events I wrote about for the city’s newspaper.

She was there freezing with me in fall 2004 when I covered my first soccer game. The team I focused on had a track star as it’s main guy. The ball would be kicked downfield, he would run under it and draw double coverage. Pretty simple, but pretty smart.

The next summer, I did an enormous amount of coverage on U.S. Midwest Regional tourney in Sioux Falls. Loved it from the beginning: Everybody was open and available (always the quickest way to curry favor with the media), and I really found learning about it interesting. And the games were great.

It showed me how much I’d changed in my tastes. This was a sport I never paid any attention to for years and even kind of disdained. However, from January 2007 on, I read several books on soccer. One had profiles on all the key players up through the 2002 World Cup, and I dove in not knowing anything about these things called “caps” or what any position really meant or who any of these people or clubs were. Yet it all seemed new, interesting, fun. It made me want to learn more and go in other directions for knowledge. It opened my mind in sports.

And when I proposed later that summer, it was at a jazz club in Sioux Falls that serves European food. Jazz was something I got into in bits and pieces, but dove into full-bore once she and I got together.

I started looking for more challenges. I got out of full-time journalism and went into sales and customer service. A different adventure for someone like me, but again, it was about getting me out of comfort zone.

Which is what soccer also does. It’s not like the other sports I grew up knowing and loving. It’s got different rules. The clock never stops. The whole “no hands” thing. The games can end in a tie — and it’s sometimes that’s quite OK.

Yet there are enough aspects familiar to other sports that it keeps me into it. There’s out of bounds. There’s great passing. There’s the tough, defense-oriented guys in the back line who mirror their counterparts in American football.

It came time to pick a club. I actually devised this crazy points system for the selection process. But I think it was always Liverpool. The club has history, like my Boston Celtics. It has had some humbling moments, like my Kansas City Royals, in that it hasn’t won a top-league title in years. And that also makes the Reds’ pursuit like that my Denver Broncos went through until the late 1990s.

They even have that classic clutch player who the team is centered around. Midfielder Steven Gerrard has a lengthy list of clutch goals, just a guy you know you can count on. He’s my new Larry Bird, George Brett and John Elway.

I knew they were my team when in 2007, I took time off from work to watch their UEFA Champions League semifinals match against Chelsea, which was considered a super-rich superpower at the time. It was fantastic, going to penalty kicks and Liverpool winning to advance to the final. I even was drinking a Carlsberg beer (the Reds’ sponsor at the time) during the match. It was the moment I officially became a soccer fan.

And my wife fed that, later that year giving me a Liverpool DVD and jersey as Christmas gifts. So she helped create the change and helped bolster it.

Not a bad package deal.

You can follow me on Twitter. And check out my e-book, “Shock Effect,” here and here. Thanks.