However, this Wall Street Journal blog post “The Truth About Soccer Moms” speaks to me more than the New York Times article it reviews “Mom Becomes a Devoted Team Player”.

It’s a fun read which may have you nodding knowingly, agreeing with her descriptions of juggling work commitments to attend sporting events. (And you know I mean dashing off to drive to soccer practices, not to sit in the boss’s sky box at a Rangers hockey game, right?)

The author states that her memories are
“not the wins, or even the championships. You remember the trips together, the characters on your teams, the coaches, the laughs. My adult stepson and I had a heart-warming conversation a while back about [team memories] . . . Now a successful business owner, my stepson mused, ‘I’m glad somebody remembers I was once a hockey player.’ . . .”

I will disagree about not remembering the wins, at least where high school soccer is concerned. Six years later Mr. Watson and I still grit our teeth as we drive into the stadium parking lot at XYZ High. (They knocked our older son’s team out of the state playoffs in 2004)!

But maybe because select team rosters changed often after U-13 — AND the various clubs throughout our region merged or changed names and affiliations — my chief memories of select soccer are the tournaments, local and distant:

* playing in February monsoons at the Jefferson Cup
* taking voluntary bumping on the last flight out (and praying we’d make it in time for a noon start)
* a U-15 goalkeeper leaving his size 13 cleats in a hotel room an hour away from the Disney fields
* a macho Dad humbly accepting a speeding ticket with a van full of snickering U-14s.

Tell us about your favorite memories of soccer parenting. I’m laying odds that they did not happen ON the pitch!

I would love to see the trends spelled out as to where soccer players go to play college soccer. If you kick out the obvious, like community colleges tend to draw in-state students,  and regional factors (how many Alabamans survive more than one season in Massachusetts?), I wonder if certain coaches have bias for and/or against local kids.

If I could bottle this knowledge I’d make a fortune selling it to parents of 11-graders. (“No, Junior, I will NOT drive you to look at the University of Nine-States-Away.  You KNOW that coach never recruits from our region.”)

I could market my knowledge thusly: “Save on Hotels and Gas! Learn which college trips are a waste of your time!”

The women’s soccer coach at Colorado University made headlines because his incoming class is composed of — gasp!— all Colorado players!

C’mon, Doyle, get Mom that calculator before the X-Box self-destructs!

Congratulations on Melanie’s fabulous success so far in the U.S. Open! I’m typing this an hour before her next appearance, and I wish her and your family well. This must so exciting for all of you!

Although none of the Watson children have picked up a tennis racquet in at least nine years, I, along with hundreds of soccer moms in the USYS Region III (which encompasses your hometown of Marietta, GA) can relate to your hotel woes.

Seriously. It is so difficult to know for how long to reserve hotels at sudden-death tournaments, and how to buy return airline tickets for such trips. Last December we had a 3:00 p.m. semifinal game, for example, with a 6:00 p.m. hotel cancellation deadline. Our suitcases were all packed and inside our cars–we’d checked-out by noon, of course–but we were poised to return under new reservations once/if we won the game. (Luckily for us, the rates were the same for all of those nights.)

Our game started late (due to overtimes and injuries in preceding games) and it got pretty tense around 5:35 or so – all 14 of us moms were locking the hotel number into our cellphones and getting ready to call and cancel if needed once/if the final shootout didn’t go our way. Needless to say, it was hard to enjoy the game itself under such pressure.

I don’t know why I’m telling you this, except to say that I feel your pain. We try to minimize distractions and aggravations for our kids when they are competing, especially at high levels, but sometimes you can’t do much about it.

On the bright side, I guess, it’s a terrific problem to have when your advancement exceeds your hotel reservations!!