A Gold Cleat and a Box of Memories

     When it comes to the beautiful game, I don’t think of the winning goal, or the championship game, or the medals and trophies. I think of my childhood, of people, of instances where my life seemed happiest.
     I think of my parents telling me stories of my very first games. They tell me of how I, at three years old, could run into a pack of bumbling toddlers and come out of the heard dribbling a tiny size three ball. In pictures, I was the goofy looking, yet irresistibly adorable, girl with the fountain hair shooting straight up from my head in a bright orange t-shirt with a soccer ball in the top corner. I can only image what a hoot it was to watch my old games.
     I think of tailgating at the Colorado Rapids games, with people who drank, cursed, smoked, and who became family. All of the wonderful people, passionate about this glorious game, who outside of a “rowdy” game of football, were the kinds of people who graduated from Yale, earned doctorates, ran school districts, and traveled the world. These were the people who supported (and still support) my family through our darkest times, who were the first people to offer their assistants, to lend their cars when ours broke down.
     I think of pitches I have played on. The park across the street from my old house offered moments of pure joy throughout my youth. I remember the first time I spoke in public, in front of my city council, asking for a soccer goal in my park, and the honor of hammering it into place. I think of summer Park Days for the kids of my church at this park, of how I was always the first picked in the soccer games. I loved dribbling around all of the older kids and the boys who thought they were better than me. I relished the “glory” especially when the American football boys couldn’t pass. I think of the pitches I wanted to play on and the ones that are the greatest desires of my heart now. I laugh at how I wanted to play in stadiums, on the world’s stage, and how I could have if I only tried that much harder. I think of the humbling “stage” I aspire to now, a dirt field among the poor and the broken, helping make their lives a little bit better. With only a real football, not some trash bags bundled together, I can bring smiles of elation to the saddest of hearts.
     I think of my future and how I want to change the world with this game. I want to play on dirt field, making kids happy even when it seems like their lives couldn’t get any worse. I think of the man who told the story of how he brought a football to a field, and men laid down their guns to play a game. This is the game that can ignite memories and hopefulness.