Kalamazoo Diary
1996 National Games -- Kalamazoo Diary
Our Girls 4 (meaning under 12) tournament team participated in the AYSO National Games in Kalamazoo, Michigan from July 16 through July 21. Coaches AJ Willmer and Michael Karlin and a group of wonderful parents brought 15 players, 10 from our region and, with AYSO's blessing, 5 from our neighboring regions Wilshire/Hollywood and Sherman Oaks. Click for a Pic! We came to have fun, to play a lot of soccer and to meet soccer players and their families from all over the country. And yes, the city's slogan really is "There Really Is A Kalamazoo".
We thought you'd enjoy a diary of our adventures in Kalamazoo. We updated this nightly during the Games and we will continue to add photographs and other neat stuff over the next few weeks. Click on Top Ten Quotes from the Players and learn the Winner of our contest for the No. 1 Quote.
The Team
Monday, July 15 - We Arrive
Tuesday, July 16 - We Run Around
Wednesday, July 17 - We Get Started
Thursday, July 18 - We Kick Ball
Friday, July 19 - We Move About
Saturday, July 20 - We Turn It On
Sunday, July 21 - We Win It All
Impressions of Kalamazoo
Top Ten Quotes from the
Players
Send your reactions and comments to us at mjkarlin@ayso76.org
Better than the Three Tenors, hungrier than the Three Bears and smarter than the Three Stooges, we feature the Three Courtneys, Courtney Small, Courtney Medium and Courtney Tall. Courtney Small has the shortest last name and the biggest heart on the team and Courtney Tall not only is the tallest girl on the team but has a name so long that they had to reprogram the spreadsheet that did the ID cards. They're all super players.
Next up Catherine (goalkeeper and trencherperson extraordinaire), Dejah (fashionably faster), Elisabeth (with booming kicks), Karen (crunch tackler), Maggie (tall and tenacious, especially after 10 a.m.), Melissa (gooooooooaaaaaaaaaalll), Peggy (unweld her from the skateboard), Rachael (sweet at sweep), Rhea (all you see is a clean pair of heels), Sarah (flashing fire and smiles), Sharon (give 'em hell), and Shelby (the left wing stops here).
The Coaches
Who cares about the coaches -- this is about kids.
Most us flew in to Chicago this afternoon and rented cars and vans for the ride to Kalamazoo. Advertised at 2 to 2 and a half hours, it took a little over three as we had to loop the Loop. Ron, our team administrator, and Michael, the Sherman Oaks coach, each took six girls in a van. They win the first bravery award. We're staying at the Quality Inn in south Kalamazoo. Not bad. The kids got some extra time up when the coaches failed to realize that Chicago, where we landed, is on central time but Michigan is on eastern time. Distributed BH pins to all of our players - we have enough also for every team we play.
Checked in at the Radisson, the Games' headquarters. Incredibly efficiently organized - hats off to the Duchamps, who were the directors of team services. Boatloads of goodies - T-shirt, mini-ball, Gatorade, program, pins, and on and on. Then off in a caravan to River Oaks playing fields to have a light workout and a mini-scrimmage. Lunch back at the Radisson at 3, which they handled with aplomb with 2 waiters for 28 people. Then back to the Quality Inn to prepare for the opening ceremony.
This was quite an event. 134 teams with as many as 18 players in Division 1 and 15 in Divisions 2, 3 and 4. Preceded by the referees, we paraded into the stadium before about 3,000 cheering spectators. Our name, Beverly Hills, got a big cheer, hopefully, no surely, a friendly one. We were upstaged a little later by a Hawaiian boys' team in grass skirts. The parade was great, as was the National Anthem, sung by a young player. The speeches were a bit windy, unfortunately, well over half an hour and we in the outfield with our teams could barely understand what was being said. We later discovered that one of the speakers was the famous English referee Ken Aston, a great friend of AYSO now in his early 80s, who invented the red and yellow cards, refereed World Cups and English FA Cup finals and chaired the International F.A. Board, which makes the Laws of the Game. Aston "showed the red card", literally, to bad sportsmanship.
We ought to mention the pre-parade parade. From the freeway to Drake Road and up to Kalamazoo Central High School was the greatest line of minivans east of the Pecos. A sight to gladden the auto manufacturers two hundred miles to the east, fer shurr.
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Coaches then went to the coaches' meeting and reception, players to dinner and (some) to The Nutty Professor. Dear Diary, we're pooped! |
Today was the Soccerfest. It sounded terrific when we first heard about it -- all 24 Girls Division 4 teams plus quite a few walk-ons split up at random into 24 teams, playing each other in two games. Then, we started thinking about the organization needed to carry it off.
When we got to the Kalamazoo Soccer Complex, it seemed our worst fears would be realized. We arrived at 9 for a 10 o'clock start and they were already half an hour late. But no. Just like everything else so far, organization was spectacular. The teams were lined up in 24 columns, we completed a line-up card to identify players participating (all except Elisabeth, who needs time - and Penicillin - to recover from a bad sinus infection) and the coaches then stepped away from the line and the organizers started assigning us players. AJ and Michael drew team no. 12 which had not one of our own players.
We then marched off to pick up jerseys and were assigned fluorescent lime green. I wanted to call the team the Slice but the team sort of settled on LLC (lemon-lime-crunch). Our first game started only 20 minutes late and we did well, losing 2-1 and pelting the other team with shots in the fourth quarter. Our second game started on time. It lasted only three quarters and we won 4-0; the last ten minutes were canceled when the rain, which, as Karen's mom Anna said, had teased us all day, got a little less subtle. I was glad to be done; I had already pulled our many strong players back and the other team was rather weak. But we left with good feelings on all sides. Sharon and Karen played for the other team and both played well.
Missy ended up playing for the coach of the team from Hawaii we play tomorrow and Dejah (AJ's daughter) and Courtney Small on the same team as a very big player from the Hawaii team. Missy scored within three minutes, a secret weapon no longer. Dejah and Courtney both looked solid; Courtney scored in the first game and played really hard. We also watched Courtney Medium and Rachael play very well. Rachael took some risks to test how well she could dribble out of defense - she looked great. We heard Rhea tore up the left wing for her team, got a glimpse of Sarah and watched Courtney Tall - amazing, deceptive speed and big kicks. Maggie and Shelby always seemed to be on fields where we weren't - we'll update you about them when they update us! Perhaps the best was that Catherine has decided that she wants to stay at goalkeeper. She's a clever field player with a big kick and good passing instincts but she's not a runner and she's a super keeper.
In the evening, AYSO threw a party for the players at
Western Michigan University. 2,000 kids bowling, dancing, mosh pitting, video gaming and
eating - all free, with hundreds of chaperones making it run smoothly. The kids had a
. Best of all, AYSO's organization was outstanding, the event was
fun and safe and the parents got a night off.
Several of us took advantage went to a wonderful micro-brewery - we recommend it. It's called Bests at 345 E. Kalamazoo Avenue located between the felicitously-named Pitcher and Porter. Try the Java Stout, coffee-flavored as its name suggests, and the Two Hearts Ale. Then a wonderful dinner at a tiny out of the way Italian joint called Cucina on Vine a couple of blocks west of Westnedge.
The theme of the day is running around and we cannot end today's diary entry without mentioning the number of times we have managed to get lost in Kala-maze-oo. It's not really that complicated a city but the street signs are rather small and there are quite enough bendy and diagonal streets and the odd road closure. Plus all the male drivers have the usual Martian willingness to ask for directions.
Tomorrow competition begins. We start late, at 1:20 p.m. - great, the kids can get some sleep after painting WMU red - or do I mean orange and black?
We heard the news about TWA Flight 800 exploding off Long Island. Utterly shocking - if you want to take time to read about it rather than our mundane adventures, check out CNN. It's unnerving to be away from home when something like that happens. And there seems no way to express the hurt, the fear or the sympathy, at least not in print.
The arithmetic is easy. 15 players means 14 playing three quarters and one playing two quarters. Now, try making line-up which meets all of the following: Positional balance, strong first and fourth quarter line-ups, flexibility to change your mind about who plays where and when, cover the gaps when a larger number of stronger players are out, and minimizing sideline kibitzing (should have put this first).
The partying was hard last night. We wake at 7:15, get downstairs by 8:30 and find that no child awakes before 10. Thank goodness our first game is at 1:20 in the afternoon.
We drag our unserried ranks to the River Oaks fields at 12:30. The facilities here amaze us. There are 8 marked fields and space for more and these fields are not used for practice. Our region has exactly four fields, plus two smaller fields and occasional access to tiny elementary school fields. We share these with baseball and we have not one soccer field available to us between February 1 and the end of August. Beverly Hills may be wealthy but it doesn't begin to do for its children what other cities do. We should stop bragging about how many trees we have; what a joke when you've spent ten minutes in Kalamazoo.
The first game was a treat; the second less so. We beat the team from Kaneohe (actually, like us they are a combination, with players from a neighboring region) in an exciting game, 3-1. The Hawaiian kids were tough as nails but they put all their speed on defense and had none left for attack - their equalizing goal coming from a long hopeful lob from 25 yards that beat our not quite tall enough keeper. Our first goal came from Courtney Small, the second from a great cross from Missy to Rhea and the third from a penalty by Missy after she was hit very hard dribbling on the goal-line. The score was 1-1 well into the third quarter; then we broke it open in the fourth. Everyone plays well; Sarah, who usually plays defense, is put in at center forward and plays very well. One awesome play stands out - Dejah running down a break away after giving away ten yards to a speedy opponent. We give the Hawaiian teams pins; they give our players necklaces and chocolate covered macadamia nuts. Very tasteful/tasty.
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Rumor has it that Cobi Jones will be at the fields to autograph balls. He's a little behind schedule, we're about to leave and then I spot him in the parking lot. We rush back and wait patiently in line while he patiently signs balls, programs and caps. Perhaps, we'll put our photo with Cobi on this page when we get back to LA and can develop and scan it. In the meantime, here's what we found on the net. Dejah forgives AJ for taking her to Kalamazoo and missing the LA Galaxy party next Sunday for season ticket holders. |
Second game at 6:40 at Kalamazoo Soccer Complex. Ten gorgeous fields, except for the fact that they have canyon like depressions between them and the sides slope off, making it hard to keep balls in bounds. We give away two pretty sloppy goals within five minutes to an excellent Lake Forest, California team and then spend the rest of the game pounding on them, but with nowhere near the fire and skill of this morning. Maggie plays an outstanding second quarter and her pass sets up a gorgeous shot from Elisabeth to score - but we just can't hack a second goal and the ref blows for full time with Missy about to take a corner -- it's been that kind of a game.
Pizza party and a rented video for the kids. Happy Gilmore, so we retreat to our diary and a few moments of peaceful communion with the cyberworld. Courtney Tall's and Courtney Small's moms arrive this evening. Thank goodness, the adults now outnumber the kids!
It's pretty obvious that some of the girls are uncomfortable about the TWA crash. Hopefully they will be OK by the time we fly on Sunday but we must watch out. And so to bed.
An early start. Our game is 9:20. However, Dejah, AJ's daughter, must eat at least two hours before the game in order to get carbohydrates into her or she will simply run out of gas. We've begun to learn a lot about what players need to prepare for a game. Some tips:
Stretching: Light aerobic warm-up before you stretch. Stretching should be mandatory, reasonably rigorous and avoid exercises which orthopedic experts say are bad for backs. For example, one favorite is the straddle stretch with the leg back or to the side, which is bad for the back. Another bad stretch, despite its popularity, is any which involves bending over to touch toes; use the runner's stretch of lifting the leg onto a bar or chair. [2007 editor's note: Times have changed - the modern view is now that traditional stretching before the game is potentially harmful or at best useless. Instead, warming up is critical and any stretching should be dynamic rather than static.]
Nutrition: Players should load up on complex carbohydrates at least an hour before the game (two hours if you are the one person in the world who is Dejah). They should drink water or sports drinks at least half an hour before the game starts. Halftime snacks are too late, but cookies are better than orange slices, which simply put acid in the stomach.
On the field before our afternoon game, the same Girls Division 2 team lost two players to accidents which required them to be taken away in ambulances. We heard, later, that both were more or less all right but it was scary.
Two games today, both against Michigan teams. We won the first with difficulty 2-1 against St. Josephs, allowing a goal on the only shot taken against us and winning in the fourth quarter with yet another clutch winner from Rhea. The second was a much more satisfying win, against Ada Cascade, with Elisabeth scoring one and the other from Missy. The satisfaction came not from the fact of the win but the manner of it. We moved Elisabeth from stopper to center forward, put Peggy in goal in the first rather than fourth quarter and put Dejah at stopper. Everything clicked and everyone played beautifully. One delightful moment: We had to put Peggy in for Missy while she tended an injury. Peggy sprang on to the field as if she had been shot out of a bazooka, her face a picture of determination, up the right past two players and smashed a cross (it was blocked but don't let that spoil the story). Guess you had to be there but it was great.
Dinner at McGinnis at 5031 Main, a cheerful sports-themed restaurant and bar, which accommodated 10 adults and 12 kids with no warning on a Friday night. Thanks to Michael Rogers and his crew (hope you're reading this!)
Coaches traipse off to the Radisson to confirm that we have placed in the upper bracket. As we thought, we play Palm Springs. We seek out the assistant coach of the Kalamazoo Girls 4 team, to give him pins for his team, which was in our bracket but whom we did not play and who will be at River Oaks tomorrow. He promises to reciprocate - his son will be at Kalamazoo tomorrow. We swap referee stories (we're referees too) - still haven't topped the Soccerfest referee who gave a penalty shot for too many steps (it's an indirect free kick, guys).
Late night, we watch the Olympic opening ceremony on television. Way too long (like ours) but, as with ours, you can't deny the raw emotion of seeing all those wonderful young people and the warmth they evoke. What a moment to see the oldest living gold-medalist, a ninety-seven year old Slovenian, saunter onto the podium and to see the torch lit by Muhammed Ali, crippled by Parkinson's disease but so proud as Janet Evans passed off the torch to him. Goosebumps.
We just discovered that when we were out on the field for our ceremony, the teams were in a formation which spelled AYSO. The coaches and teams couldn't tell, of course, and no one told us afterwards. Must get a picture for this diary. But not tonight! Tomorrow - a word (all right, a few words) about pins and sportsmanship.
Our game is at noon against Palm Springs, easy winners of their group. The game is over in five minutes. Our new line-up, moving Elisabeth to center forward from stopper and moving Dejah to stopper improves both our offence and our defense. By the end of the quarter, Elisabeth has scored one, Rhea another and Missy three. We take Missy out, move Maggie to forward, bring Catherine as forward rather than goalie. This, plus a hard shot on the shin which takes Dejah out for two and a half quarters, slows the team down and only when Missy returns and smashes a sixth after a glorious dribble from left half does the score change. A Boys 2 player on the sideline says he couldn't throw the ball as far as Missy - he's right.
Pin fever grips us. We brought enough Beverly Hills pins to give one to each player on every team we play but it may not be enough. We've got to get into the final and play Lake Forest - we've already traded pins with them! On Friday, we sent home for more but, infuriatingly, Express Mail from the U.S. Postal Service fails to deliver them on Saturday. Here are some links to the USPS' competitors that deliver to Kalamazoo!
A major feature of the Games is sportsmanship. Every game is graded on six categories by the four officials (referees plus field marshal). The team with the highest point total wins a special trophy; in addition, sportsmanship is a tiebreaker in determining bracket in the early rounds. Amazingly, this rather simplistic scheme induces a major behavior change in the players and especially the parents and coaches. Despite some epic mistakes by referees and awful fouls, despite whiffs, frustrating plays and mental lapses, the coaching remains positive, the parents polite and the referees are treated with almost sycophantic subservience (real nice, in words of one syl).
In fact, the emphasis on sportsmanship goes beyond putting everyone on their best behavior. In the most genuine way, it has turned these entire Games into a tournament of good feeling. Of course our increasing success feels good and no one suggests that the Games are noncompetitive. But the whole atmosphere has been pure joy.
In the afternoon, we pick up where we left off. The girls come out for a six o'clock game awash in adrenalin - we never saw them so pumped. They come roaring out onto the field, take a 2-0 lead with early goals from Rhea and Elisabeth. The first was particularly pretty, a Dejah throw-in on the right, back passed to Dejah, pumped into the middle, touched on by Elisabeth to Rhea who chipped the ball over the keeper from 15 yards out. The second was messier but they all count. The Pleasant Hills team kept trying but their only goal came on what was, simply, a bad call after Elisabeth ran a player off the ball on the right. The resulting, well-struck free kick, helped by the wind, curled round our keeper Catherine and Maggie could only help it in, making a great stretching effort on a ball that was going in anyway. But that was it for threats. Our team fires on all cylinders, our three Courtneys and the other halfbacks fighting off very physical opponents. We add a third on what has become a classic Missy-Rhea combo.
Michael, our guest from Sherman Oaks, now admits he has a problem: Rhea and Elisabeth (his daughter) do not usually play forward and we have proved how effective they are with our tremendously well organized defense at the back, anchored by Empress Catherine, General Rachael and Admiral Dejah. These are problems any coach should be blessed with. A special word for Erin Miller, the Pleasant Hills keeper and savior of numerous huge shots from near and far. Her coach gives us a great T-shirt for Catherine, our goalie.
On to the finals tomorrow. We'll be without Sarah, whose family have to return to California a day earlier. We have a celebration dinner at Carlos Murphy's (great Mexican food but the service was far too slow and the kids, still pumped, get a little wild). We plan a party when we return. Anna (Karen's) says she will work with Ginny (Missy's) on a scrapbook. We can't finish worse than second in the upper bracket and we have a chance to win it all against Lake Forest, comfortable winners against Downey. Our Red Flight turned out to have been the Grupo de Muerte (sounds good in Spanish, n'est-ce pas?). The teams that finished 3, 4 and 5 in our group and play in the lower bracket playoffs all make the semi-finals with two wins today. Only St. Josephs loses, but Kanehoe, Ada Cascade and Kalamazoo rack up two big wins apiece. Good for them, we knew they are good teams.
Tomorrow: A report on the final and some more impressions of Kalamazoo. Maybe we can finally get some real quotes from the team. And please, come back to our site in a week or two; we'll have pictures and other neat stuff.
We mention our diary website to everyone we can. An amazing percentage of people promise to look at it. Never mind whether they do or not, the sheer number of ordinary folks with Internet access is staggering. Pleasant Hills has a neat website, by the way. Check it out.
A cool day, in both senses of the word. The day starts cloudy and it later rains, but not on our parade. The Lake Forest team come out sure of victory but their fate is sealed. We (Missy, who else?) scores an early goal, then give one back to a shot from the very powerful and big right forward, too much for first Shelby, nursing a foot injury that has limited her speed, and then Courtney Small. So we move Elisabeth to left defense and that slams the door shut. We get two more goals from Missy (and one shot against a left goalpost which is still reverberating) and absorb a ton of pressure with great composure. Peggy plays like a maniac at right defense, Rachael and Dejah are impeccable at sweeper and stopper and our midfield (the three Courtneys and Shelby, Maggie and Rhea) simply overwhelm their opposite numbers and the forwards (Missy, with Sharon, Rhea again, and Karen playing out of position but effectively nonetheless) keep pressure all through the game. Catherine is supersolid. We seem to get to every ball first. Early in the fourth quarter, as Lake Forest throw everything at us, Dejah breaks their hearts with a 30 yard line drive into the top lefthand corner. 4-1. It's all over. It's cool!
We attend the presentation of medals at the flagpoles, aglow. Larry, the tournament director, can't help a crack about 90210 (there are more girls (and both coaches) from 90211, better known as Baja Beverly Hills). Then, off to the hotel to check out and the drive to Chicago, four hours because of a 30-mile jam on the freeway crossing from Indiana to Illinois, and home, safely and unbumpily. Dejah and Elisabeth show a delightful other side, spending much of the flight looking after Caitlin, a four-year old, and her baby brother traveling with their mother. We show off the website on AJ's laptop. Michael and AJ are met by Fiona, Michael's wife, and Michael gets home to his children, daughter Laura, 13, herself just home from the Ken Aston AYSO player referee camp and son Toby, 11, who plays "We Are The Champions" on the saxophone. And so the adventure ends, with feet on the ground and spirits in the sky.
Impressions of Kalamazoo
For us Southern Californians, Kalamazoo was hard to read. The homogenization of America proceeds apace, with an Ace Hardware, a Burger King, a Dairy Queen and a Jack-in-the-Box and the whole deck of cards just as in every town in America. What was distinctive? Some obvious things, like the scarcity of foreign cars and the overwhelming number of churches, many evangelical, and the fascinating skies, with moody weather driven by the proximity of Lake Michigan. To the very end, we found it easy to get lost or at least to miss a turning, even to get out of the Quality Inn parking lot. Everyone is friendly and many are slightly in awe of the city we hail from. The ones who are least in awe are generally the most interesting, like the waitress at Cucina. There is certainly a yearning after culture in this town but that yearning is poorly satisfied compared to our resources in Los Angeles.
Middle America is, nevertheless, America. It is not some foreign land, nor should California or New York or Texas be a foreign land to Middle America, notwithstanding all of the jokes - rather tiresome and repetitious, don't you think? There's no question that there are differences, particularly with the cost of living and even more particularly the cost of housing. Your diarist attended the Ken Aston referee camp at Cal State Long Beach a week after the Games and talked to a senior AYSO volunteer from Michigan who is taking a paid position with the AYSO National Office in Hawthorne, California. He is slightly stunned by Southern California house prices. At least his children are grown so he doesn't have to worry about school districts. The best one near Hawthorne (AYSO National HQ) is probably Palos Verdes and Lord knows (as do most actual and wannabe residents) how expensive that city is. Almost makes BH look cheap.
We were speaking of Kalamazoo. It is larger than one might expect . Don't know about the population but geographically it is roomy. No really tall buildings and the center of town really is Main Street USA except that the streets are so wide. The town is ringed by two freeways which occasionally grind to a trot but mostly move. The people were friendly enough but neither cloyingly so nor did they evince much curiosity about us. Our minds were on soccer and theirs on the daily business of a pleasant summer.
Top
Ten Quotes from the Players
10. "I need water!" (or the more laconic "Water!")
9. "She kicked/stepped on/elbowed/tickled me."
8. "Don't mess with the best."
7. "What position am I in?" (or the more existential "What am I?")
6. "Go Missy!"
5. "Where are my socks/shinguards/shirt/right shoelace?"
4. "Hercules!" (in-joke - see The Nutty Professor)
3. "Hey Macarena!" (named after the famous Argentina soccer player, I do not think.)
2. "I don't want/need/eat breakfast."
1. And the winner is . . . "How much longer? Are we there yet????" submitted, without their knowing it, by every player who ever played the game. Really, we must put this on an audio file so you can all experience it the way AJ and I did. But then again, you can all hear it in your mind's ear!
Last updated at 7:40 a.m. EST 8/22/96. In the jungle, the quiet jungle, the Diarist sleeps tonight!