Losing

I took my two boys to see the Revolution play in R.F.K. stadium in Washington D.C. We were full of optimism. We were coming from Boston, home of the Red Sox. We are Patriots fans, Celtics fans, we don't care so much about hockey (though we feel guilty about it.) This is the year, is it not, to be a Boston sports fan? We had kismet on our side. Plus, it was the second match-up in so many years against the Houston Dynamos. Surely we had their number by now.

If you follow American soccer, and chances are, you don't, you know the Revolution lost 2-1 after running out steam in the second half. The sports commentators have not so far mentioned that the Dynamos were literally jumping over our players to header the ball. Nor that a couple of our younger players seemed to have developed a phobia of gaining possession of the ball during the break. The Revolution is a team that can play. I mean, here they are at the cup, again, fourth time, third time in three years. They lost in miserable fashion. My older son actually cried. If Sharie Joseph also cried I don't blame him. He probably had the same thought, why bother coming all this way to lose?

Because my son cried I had to be non-chalant. I introduced him to the old Boston mantra "there's always next year." Now that we don't need it for the Red Sox we can lay it on Twellman and company. I said that the baggage of playing the same team may have hurt, I said maybe most of the team was out partying the night before. This made my upset son more so, only now with me, and my young son laugh.

When I first took this sensitive, intelligent, athletic child to a Red Sox game we lost. I remember thinking (this was pre 2004) "why am I doing this to him?" But I have never regretted being a Red Sox fan, not through all the losses. I've regretted the losses, and many of my fellow fans, but never my choice of team or my choice to be a fan at all. I learn from being a fan. I learn that I cannot control the actions of others. I learn that rarely does how another performs have anything at all to do with me (though I do believe a park full of supporters can boost a team, the way an engaged audience feeds life into a show.) And I learn parenting metaphors. I need these.

This morning , with my son's homework undone he was distraught. I told him he had to go into class and he was beating himself up "I know I can do so much better." I used the one pitch at a time metaphor ( the wounds from Sunday are still too raw to use soccer metaphors.) I have used the Patriots as examples, not how they live their lives, which I don't follow, but how they play the game, how they change position to strengthen the team, how they stay focused in the game, how Brady focuses, making a pass with rushers just about on him. I can't use Randy Moss. He performs outside the level of normal humans. I do use the Red Sox: how Papelbon can get behind in the count, with two men on base and stay with the next pitch, how Varitek adjusts constantly to pitchers, and batters, how Manny Ramirez stares down a pitch no matter the count. I love sports metaphors, though I never played any of these games.

When I was little I was signed up for softball, which my big sisters played. My coach told me not to swing at anything because I was so short, even for my age, that no pitcher was going to be able to strike me out - my strike zone was tiny. If she had worked on also teaching me to hit I might have been willing to employ that strategy during games. But she didn't teach me anything. There was no team building, no skill building for newbies like me. So I swung. Once I swung my bat straight over my head. I imagine that lots of kids do that, but you'd never know it by the reaction of my coach. I quit. I danced instead. I was not going to become a hot shot athlete regardless, though I admired them. As one of five children in a family with two working parents and (horror or horrors) no sitter, no nanny, no cleaning lady, it was all my folks could do to sign us up for lessons. I still learned something. I learned that some coaches suck.

When I had to be away a couple of summers ago I signed my children up for camp during the day. It was tennis camp, well loved by a number of children we know. Turns out in order to love it, you have to already know how to play tennis. This is not what the camp claims, just how it is. There is no instruction, only direction. "Now let's practice our back hand." When I signed them up for swim lessons they were skeptical. The lessons were great and my older son was soon asked to be on the swim team, but the competitive atmosphere of tennis camp had turned him off and he declined. In fact, he dropped out of swim lessons when he thought progression would mean he had to join the team.

As this summer ended I found my son in tears at the prospect of playing soccer in the athletics program at school. It is part of the school day and mandatory. As much as liked kicking a soccer ball around he had never played. He knew some of his friends had and I thought this might be the cause of his anxiety. "No," he said, "I just don't like competitive sports." Two weeks later he got into the car after school with the enthusiastic announcement, "I was sweeper today." He loves soccer. He loves soccer because the coaches at his school are excellent. They build skills and confidence simultaneously. They take a pedagogical approach to what they do and they do it with care.

While we were in D.C. this son told me he hopes to be a professional baseball player. He has never played baseball outside of a pick-up game with friends in the park. I said maybe he wanted to sign up for little league in the spring, something he had been avoiding. "Yeah." He said. I don't know how he'll be at baseball. I don't care. I'm glad he is willing to play, to compete. He cried at the end of his school's soccer season. They lost every game - they only played four. There is nothing wrong with caring about winning, or feeling bad about losing. There's nothing wrong with thinking "I could do better." In fact, it's a great way to look at defeat, learn, and then move on. To the next pitch, the next kick, the next pass, the next day.

So, we went all that way and who knows what happened to the Revs. We cheered like mad, and then cheered them at the end of the game. I asked my boys on Monday, why did we cheer them after they lost? They knew. Because they played hard all year, they made it to the Cup and they gave it their best, even if that day's best was inexplicably lacking. This too is part of being a fan, of understanding that when others fail it is not always for lack of trying, or even lack of ability. Failure is inevitable and we all do it. To be kind to ourselves and others, and to put it in perspective, is something life long fans learn to do. We love our teams even when they fail us, frustrate us, make us crazy. As long as they keep trying, we will keep cheering.

We will be at Gillette Stadium next season, (can't afford Pats tickets) and hopefully, at the MLS Cup. We may miss a little more school, but not a single lesson.