Sporting memories: The first time I hugged a dude because of teamwork

Sports bring out heavy emotions in us, crucial moments in a team sport really bring out the emotions that we wouldn't normally display. I wasn't opposed to the idea of it, but back when I was in high school dudes didn't just go around hugging other dudes and I think that is something that has always been kind of true.

But when something really amazing happens and it was specifically because of teamwork and things that you as a team have been working on for quite some time but never yet properly executed, well, emotions run high and the memory of this happening for me still stick in my mind today. I can still see the pitch, the grass, our uniforms, and that fact that me and the other guy involved weren't really friends off the field.

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The above picture is not us. This was long before digital smartphones or even digital cameras, it was also football of the soccer variety so not only was there no photographer in attendance, there were barely any fans in attendance as well.

In my high school, we had only recently gotten a soccer team at all, prior to that interest in the sport being something that all the regional high schools played was something that took some time. I wasn't on the team the first year that it existed but lets just say it wasn't terribly popular as a near-adult sport. Parents would attend games when their kids were involved but that was it. You didn't even have to pay to get in, we didn't have a stadium. What we did have was a plot of land at the park that was miles from the actual school we attended.

Anyway, I was a freshman (first year) in high school, and I was quite good at the sport already. Therefore, I was promoted to the Varsity team which is not something that normally happens for freshman because there is a rather large size difference between someone that is 13 and someone that is 17 or even 18. I was scrappy and fast though and for that and the fact that I could dribble and shoot with both feet, I was not only promoted but started most games and played a lot of minutes.

In this, and most other games I was on the left wing, normally as a midfielder but if we were playing a 2 or 3-forward strategy, I would play as forward. Our coach had spent weeks trying to "train the brain not the body" in practice to encourage us to spread out and use field positioning to get an advantageous position on the field instead of trying for the usual American "run and gun" offensive that is likely still the norm to this day. He had been grilling us about the importance of playing in ALL directions, not just forward. While this sounds silly to member of other nations keep in mind that the training for this sport in America was pretty bad in the early 1990, which is when this game took place.

Myself, a reliable midfielder, and this one other guy had been working our way down the field and maintaining possession doing EXACTLY what the coach had been working on with us. We kept moving to different positions to remain open, rather than simply trying to rush the goal.

On one of these passes we pulled the right back out of position with a quick pass forward leaving only the center back and the goalkeeper to get past, at that point I had the ball and feigned a rush on the goal. The last defender took the bait and I made a pass slightly behind him but far enough in front of the keeper so that it was out of his reach. My teammate now could have taken the shot himself but instead, lightly touched the ball back to me leaving me with nearly an open net. Rather than nail the ball with all my foot strength (again, a real problem in American soccer at the time) I lightly touched the ball and it slowly but surely made its way to the back of the net.

The elation that followed was just overwhelming because of a couple of reasons: 1) the team we were playing against was known as one of the best in the state and would later on go to make it to the state finals whereas we at that point, had never made it out of regionals 2) to see success in something that you had been practicing for weeks just kind filled both of us with glee.

I ran to the guy that selflessly gave me the ball instead of attempting to take the glory for himself and we hugged in the middle of the field and kept our arms around one another about halfway to the center line where the other guy, a midfielder who prior to that day had been known as a "ball hog" joined in our group hug.

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While such celebrations became something that would happen to me many more times in the future, that particular instance really sticks out in my mind to this day, more than 30 years later because it was the first time I had shown such emotion on the field. I think at least part of it was because there was some level of resentment towards me because I was much younger than most of my teammates, but at that point forward, I was one of the crew since the guy who gave me the soft touch for the goal was the team captain.

We ended up losing that game 4-1 but that one goal wasn't even supposed to happen.

Years later, me and the guy that I hugged in that glorious moment on the field would get into a Facebook argument over politics and in the heat of the exchange I brought up that moment and he too remembered it. We the apologized for what we had said on the post and deleted our comments. The memory of that day overpowered the silly outburst we were having at the time. Team mates experience a bond like no other and to me that day is one of the greatest sporting memories of my life....even though at the end of it all we were beaten rather badly.