“Imani’s practice is 6:30 to 8:00.”
The Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving, my daughter called to reiterate what she had told me the night before about my granddaughter’s soccer practice. I was visiting in New Jersey and my grandbeauties’ parents were at work, comfortable with leaving the septuagenarian to shuttle the athletes to their various sports events. Lisa knew that the complicated schedule of deliveries — grandson Xavion to this practice at this time and granddaughter Imani to that one at that time — was likely to be a challenge that the “old man” might not be up to. “On it, boss,” I told her, keyed the practice address into the maps on my phone, and bundled Imani into the car.
My granddaughter is a gymnast who plays the saxophone and reads “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” books in a “Reading is Fun Club” organized by her friend, Kiera Swartz. She had never before played soccer when Kiera’s mother reached out to my daughter. It could have been her athletic approach to reading — she reads upside down and sideways on the furniture — that inspired Chris Swartz to invite Imani to join the Hanover Hurricanes, a traveling soccer team for girls under 11 years old. Kiera’s father, Tom Swartz, coaches the team and knew Imani from her attendance at Kiera’s reading club. Maybe he felt that confidence and athleticism could make up for a lack of specific knowledge about soccer.
The practice I took Imani to was prior to the anticipated make-up of two games lost to rain and snow. I watched as Coach Tom Swartz and Mike Mihalko directed the girls in exercises around the indoor courts, negotiating small cones on the floor and practicing passing and kicking. Coach Mike Cassidy drilled the girls individually on “right foot, left foot” kicking into the goal, making sure that some “big-footed” girls were situated at a distance from the goal to keep them from hammering a hot one into the coach’s thigh. As a final drill, Cassidy dropped the soccer ball in front of the player, who was instructed to kick it into the net before it hit the ground.
A rain-soaked home field sent the ‘Canes on the road Sunday, November 25th, about 40 miles to Kittatinny, New Jersey. I stood with other parents and supporters on the chilly sidelines, a chill that did not seem to affect the girls on the field. It must now be stated that my two youngest children both played soccer and I attended some of their games and came away with zero knowledge about the game. I watched in clueless wonder as the Hanover Hurricanes pulsed up and down the field, kicking a ball and occasionally, each other, and listening to the mothers on the sidelines as they screamed “SHOOT IT!” I heard the names of the girls being called out: Mady, Kaia and Alana and Peyton and Kiera and Becca and Imani, and chuckled as the girls defended against a “corner kick” by warning each other “DON’T LET IT GO IN THE GOAL!” A fitting end to a tied game came when a ‘Cane skimmed the ball across the front of the opposing goal, and another player, muscle memory reinforced by Coach Cassidy’s drill, booted it into the net for the win.
On December 1st, I got a message from my daughter: “Soccer champs!” Alana Cassidy, Cambria O’Connor, Courtney Radice, Imani Crosby, Kaia Mihalko, Kayleigh Slinski, Kiera Swartz, Mady Kaser, Peyton Morales, Rebecca McClain, Siena Stella and Victoria Leach had won 5-2, and completed an undefeated, 10-0 season in my confident and athletic granddaughter’s first outing as a soccer player.
Go ‘Canes.