You'll have to bear with me here, I've had an upset tummy lately due to all of the sausage and cookie dough I've been eating lately.

Everyday another story. People stop me on the street... "hey Samster, why so much politics in youth soccer?" My only response is "bark." Or maybe, "bark, bark." The sad thing is there is no reason for the politics, well, no reason other than growns-ups tend to ruin everything fun for children.

Once upon a time somebody, somewhere had a kid. After a few years this kid enjoyed kicking a soccer ball. Before too long the neighbor kid came over to play. She too enjoyed kicking the soccer ball. The two kids kicked the ball back and forth, and shortly after, the new kid from around the corner joined in.

Somewhere else, this same thing was happening. Neighborhood A, we'll call them the Millers, and Neighborhood B, the Smiths, both had backyard games breaking out daily. The kids were having a ball (no pun intended), and the parents smiled as they watched their kids play and laugh and kick and smile.

One day at the laundr-o-mat, Mr. Miller and Mrs. Smith started talking as they watched their clothes go through the spin cycle. "My son Chucky, is really quite the star in the backyard soccer match. He scores goals every time he gets the ball. His friends are all pretty good too," said Mrs. Smith. Mr. Miller laughed politely and suggested that his daughter Amy, could beat all of the boys in their neighborhood. Mr. Miller even went so far as to call Amy "the Little White Female Pelé."

It wasn't long before the Miller Muskrats and the Smith Smurfs® were kicking off the first game in a series of weekend matches. The first game ended in a tie. Mr. Miller and Mrs. Smith were very irritated, as neither of them earned the bragging rights for that week. The next week, before the second game, Mr. Miller and Mrs. Smith decided to amend the rules so that no game could end in a tie. They would continue to play 10 minute overtime periods until somebody won, and somebody else lost. After slightly more than 3 hours and 43 minutes of play, Mr. Miller's team won after the entire defensive line for the Smurfs® were called home to dinner.

Game three. During the week previous, Mr. Miller had been raving about his Muskrats to Mrs. Smith. He was so proud of them that he convinced Mr. Hornblend, the father of the Muskrats' goalkeeper and owner of the local sporting goods store, to donate uniforms to the Muskrats. This was embarassing to the Smurfs®, and by game four the Smith team had donned equally impressive and shiny uniforms, which were bought at Hornblend's Sports Shop with funds donated by Mr. Alcatraz, the manager of the neighborhood bowling alley and father of the Smurfs'® right defender.

Game five saw the erection of a hi-tech scoreboard. Game six was the premier of the Muskrat Canopy and matching banners. Game seven was the opening of the Smurf® Snack Bar. Game eight, "Miller Monthly," the official newsletter of the neighborhood circuit was circulated to every fan in attendance.

Then came the infamous games nine and ten. Two surrounding neighborhoods, asked to enter their neighborhood teams into the league. Mr. Miller and Mrs. Smith decided it would be fair to ask each team to pay $100 to play. The two-team league doubled in size with the addition of the Gomez Geckos and Anderson Anteaters. Mr. Miller and Mrs. Smith decided that this was a good idea and asked other neighborhoods to join in.

Before long, the league was 10 teams large. The Muskrats weren't doing as well as they had originally done, so Mr. Miller recruited the center forward goal-scoring sensation from the Denzell Demon Dogs, by offering to buy him new soccer shoes (a gift from Mr. Hornblend) and pay his league fees. The Smurfs® started practicing twice a week, and enlisted the coaching help of Mr. Hoolihan, a former professional player from Ireland. Three of the new neighborhood teams: Washington Walruses, Turlington Tigers, and Himmelfarb Hounds, took the best players from each team and created a new team called Uptown Select.

The teams kept improving. The price to play kept increasing. Mr. Miller and Mrs. Smith were the presidents of the two most powerful soccer clubs in their entire city. Each season got more competitive. And all of the parents were getting very involved in the feeding of their egos.

Chucky quit playing soccer a year ago because he said it wasn't very fun anymore, he said it was too competitive. Amy stopped playing after she was slapped in the face by an angry parent from one of the rival teams.

I was out for a walk the other day and I saw Chucky and Amy kicking a soccer ball back and forth at the park.

Keep the faith.
Ciao for Now.