So your lovely and talented daughter is moving into another phase of her life. Good for her. It takes some maturity to realize what you want and make the right choices to get there. No doubt L&TC will miss her soccer playing, but the excitement of doing new things will put it in perspective for her.

As for her mom and dad, you two will learn to love not having the worry and just get to watch her kickin’ ass in other ways. It’s all fun.

Casey sounds like the type of person who goes at life hard, kicking ass and taking names. No matter what she does or where she goes, that determination will serve her well. Good for her, and may she move on to the next level in her life with that great attitude.

And good for Mr and Mrs TBogg for always being there, bandages in hand. It’s hard to watch a tough kid take her knocks.

Having watched English Premiere League games for a few years as an American just trying to have some other cultures in my life — without having to do something requiring effort like learning a new language, I appreciate there’s some diving. But without Ronaldo in it, diving is down about 40% (only because Drogba has increased his diving to compensate). Somewhat excusing the diving is the fact that the Premiere League is extremely physical. It’s not NFL level physical, but it’s damn near rugby.

Of course, if Man United is involved in a match (or “fixture” see, learning other cultures) I’ve noticed the refereeing is familiar to any American — like I see in an SEC game involving Florida or Alabama. If Man U is down, there’s always going to be at least 5 minutes of added time; if something happens in the box, it’s going to be a Penalty kick for someone in a red jersey. Wayne Rooney is like Tim Tebow without the “Jesus” but still possessing the inherent dickishness.

Oh sorry, got off on a tangent. Good luck to your L&T daughter and her now slightly less arthritic knees.

German guy here, which immediately makes me a first rate football pundit. The Lambert video leaves me baffled but only cause I still don’t know what the big deal is.

The one face swipe was nasty, ya, and the ponytail tuck is bad but right before that she gets an elbow to the chest and has her shorts grabbed. That hard tackle was more technical ineptitude than malice considering she lands flat on her ass after that. The rest is kindergarten stuff and they also keep provoking her with more elbows to the tits, another womens football favorite.

Like you said, many Americans still think this game is about a couple of guys merrily chasing a ball while balancing their afternoon tea cups and the team with the most theatrical performance after a foul wins but if you look at the number of people who are disabled after their career or have career ending injuries, it’s bad… On top of that one of Germany’s national keepers committed suicide yesterday.

Blessings to L&TC in all of her future endeavors, and to the family of the Boggs. It is not always easy to realize that it is time to move on with other priorities after playing sports at an elite college level. For most who play, it’s called real life. Casey will be a winner at that game also. (Now, my dear, if you can just hand me back my beer. . . )

Hey, I broke my collar bone the exact same way !

My dad played high school football. He ended up totally disabled at age 58 with osteoarthritis. He self medicated with alcohol, but it wasn’t enough and so he put a bullet through his head. My brother-in-law just had his hip replaced at age 61 because he was catcher on his college baseball team. As for concussions, ask the NFL how well those work out over time. When are people going to wake up to the fact that competitive sports are the opposite of health?

This is turning into one of the most depressing TBogg threads ever.

Thank you. The wife and I were trying to decide whether to let our 12 year old girl try out in middle school. Think we will wait for swimming season.

What a bittersweet time. I remember when my son, having decided he wouldn’t play football (the American kind) any more after high school, played that last game. Life goes on.

Nice post, Dadbogg.

And German pundits aside, that is some fucked up shit that Lambert pulls on the pitch. She’s a bitch with a capital “C”.

Great photo. Yeah sports ‘r tough, but it’s a great way for young people to blow off hormonal adreneline while being supervised. Better than the lifestyle of the three young guys I saw tonight at 11 o’clock just after they’d punched their car head on into a tree after a night on the turps.

And you can be sure that after a youth filled with demanding competition the L&T Casey won’t take any shit from anyone at her new gig.

My youngest was a keeper at the comp level, and played one season on a boy’s team. Every visit to the emergency room and every time we took her home crying in pain is seared in my memory forever. She still has shoulder problems, and has a big scar on the inside of her leg where another player cleated her illegally in the box, and the jerkwad ref, who, this being Utah, was probably his third inbred cousin, looked the other way. That time I had to carry her off the field. She still revels in the time she took out other players who were trying to get away with illegal moves in the box. What I ended up hating about it–besides the $300 cleats and the $150 gloves and the $80 padded goalie jersey–was the politics. This being Utah again, it wasn’t whether you were a good player, it was whether your wife’s second cousin’s bishop in the Waaard had been on a MISH-uhn for Th’Lard with the coach’s son. She finally got so disgusted with it that she gave it up and now runs track; she likes the fact that you really compete against yourself; she misses the team camaraderie, but not the politics. So good luck to L&TC! BTW, I saw that San Diego State upset BYU the other day in the Mountain West Conference; good for them! The saying in the heathen parts of Utah is “my favorite team is the UofU and anyone who beats BYU.”

My 12 year old plays club soccer right here in San Diego and I laughed when you wrote the physical stuff starts at 12 because we have seen a huge increase this year. Some of the parents on our team are just “shocked” how rough it gets making my Mexico City native husband {who had his first soccer related knee injury at age 14} shake his head.

I have followed your L&T Casey’s career since her high school days and have enjoyed following her ride. Thanks for sharing.

I hope Casey enjoys her new paths as she finds them. You’re a good dad, and she sounds like a great woman.

My 11 year old son just finished his second “travel” season. Poor kid got his first red card. Not for rough play, but for being the last defensive player and coming up from behind to take the ball, but took out the offensive player, too. Not intentional, but kinda rough I suppose.

So whaddya know?! There’s a rule against that…and it’s an automatic red card.

Fuckin’ rules.

All the best to L&TC, but I’m kinda scared now for my 11 year old.

Before she turned eighteen Casey had already been through three concussions (one from basketball), two hamstring tears, a blown ACL, a fractured collar bone, fractured ribs, a dislocated patella, and more broken fingers and toes than I can remember.

Holy crap. Is your daughter a Wolverine clone?

Not being a team-sporty type, I had no idea this sport was so violent and injurious. I suppose, like world-class hangovers and such, the injuries are more easily tolerated when you are sub-25, but it gets tougher as the years march on. The great part is all the mental toughness that L&TCasey got from her commitment to such a tough sport will always be with her (no smooth-talkin’, hormones-on-overdrive C-monger is going to get one past her, especially if he wants to live). What is also great is the injuries that she’ll avoid by heading into internshipland. These are all good things.

Congrats L&T Casey; the gods have obviously favored you with some serious smarts and wit. Good genes, good parents, excellent canine supervision!

I hate it when someone pulls on my ponytail, so I have to always make sure it’s not sticking out of my pants…

I’m a soccer dad too. My daughter played school and club soccer until her senior year in HS. Might have kept playing if not for the politics. She was a keeper, at 5’2″ she protected every square inch of that goal with her life. Had a 40-50 yard punt, strong enough kick to break a girl’s nose who got to close to one of her free kicks. But wasn’t pretty enough for the team photo I guess.

I don’t miss:
Buying the cleats, gloves and jerseys, motoring all over the state for tournaments.
Hearing her head colide with the goal framework.
Long waits in the e-room for sprains the might be breaks.

I do miss the sheer joy on her face when she did good.

Good luck to L&TC. She’s smart enough, she’s tough enough and gosh, people just like her.

Take care, you will get over it yourself.

I see many here agree with the sports mantra,”never let those refs interrupt the ‘flow’ of the game.”

“On top of that one of Germany’s national keepers committed suicide yesterday.”

I think this was due more to his losing his 2 yr. old daughter a while back rather than any Futbol issues.

the very best to Casey in her internship.

two of my fave biggest hitters in blogdom are fierce and relentless women. have had the opportunity to ask them both about it – independent of one another, both claimed they realized later in life it came from their soccer playing days

Hat tip for the Hiroo Onoda reference. Also:

But I won’t miss worrying that she’s inflicting further damage to herself

Just be glad she didn’t go in for gridiron, TBogg old chap. I’m amazed the majority of players actually survive that particular pastime.

But she did.

I won’t miss the politics either…and while it was minimal at the collegiate level, there was still drama with coaches, teammates, and administrators. That said, the stuff off the field taught Casey just as much about the world as the pushing and shoving and tripping and jersey pulling and bad officiating did on the field. Girls desperately need the life lessons that come with organized sports. They still don’t have enough venues to learn the value of teamwork and follow through and work ethic and commitment to a common goal and yes, toughness and sometimes pain. We (and I know Tbogg will agree with this) will never regret one minute of practice or travel or games or lost weekends or vacations or any other “sacrifices” we have made for Casey’s athletic endeavors. Even the injuries, trips to the emergency room and surgical rehab have shaped the amazing young woman that she has become. Watch out world because there is an entire generation of L&T Casey’s (well maybe not quite as L&T) coming after you and if we are lucky, they will take over!

Oh, you will miss every moment of it, but you will also cherish all the memories.
I remember all the expense and hassles and conflicts of my son’s baseball and soccer years but I also miss those times.
Casey does not need to be through with her sport though. There are plenty of adult leagues around both outdoor and the ever more popular indoor.
Soccer was not a sport available to women of my age during youth or high school. I first played indoor soccer when I was 39. A group of soccer moms got together to form a team. What a thrill to score my first goal. And how funny was it that a bunch of young boys were in the stands yelling “Mom! Kick the ball!” Of course once they yelled Mom, we all turned around to see which Mom they were yelling at.

MrsTbogg: Write to me in 40 years and then tell me you have no regrets. Sports are not the only, nor are they the best, way for girls to learn to succeed in life. My grown daughters–a lawyer and a geologist–got there without any sports whatsoever. They and I are disciplined and tough women, and we didn’t need to injure ourselves to get there or to prove it. We exercised our brains.

Oh shit. Here come the mom wars.

My take on the Lambert kerfuffle? Generally, centre-backs try to get a sense early on of whether a referee is going to be lenient or strict, and that dictates what happens for the rest of the match. Making her a scapegoat for an AWOL ref and a coach who probably should have subbed her is pretty lame.

Onwards and upwards for Chopper Casey. And there are always the five-a-side leagues for when she moves on from just holding the bottles.

I respectfully disagree. Casey is not only athletically talented, she is also intellectually gifted. They are not mutually exclusive and I take offense at the insinuation that because Casey pursued athletic pursuits, that she could not also be successful in academic ones. Soccer as a sport is often compared to chess in the need to anticipate and counter your opponent’s next move and while your daughters may have chosen to sit on the sidelines, mine was out there challenging herself in ways they will never know or understand. Sports, obviously, isn’t for everyone…

My take on the Lambert kerfuffle? Generally, centre-backs try to get a sense early on of whether a referee is going to be lenient or strict, and that dictates what happens for the rest of the match.

I was never into organized sports (it’s the organized part…), but while growing up I knew a minor league hockey referee who had a comparable view. He thought his job was to call whatever he saw…if he allowed some players to get away with crap then he’d have fights on his hands, if he wanted to minimize that then he had to call whatever he saw, and be fair about it.

If a game had a lot of fights, he looked at the ref.

I frankly think your response to Mrs T. is bizarre. I grew up not playing any sport and honestly if I had not married the man I did I probably wouldn’t be spending my time after work driving the kids to and from practice and my Saturdays trying to find some damn soccer field in Ramona. However, like Mrs T I don’t regret any of it – it has been enormously valuable for my kids. Best of all – they LOVE it. Our son tried to convince us last Saturday that even though he had a 101 fever he could go play his game.

I believe what my mom is trying to say is that sports have made me the person I am today. Sports are not for everyone and some people can become great people without playing any sport ever. Honestly, I wouldn’t trade any of the years I have played and the injuries that have come with it for anything. I am honestly offended that certain people jump to the conclusion that athlete automatically equals stupid. I can tell you that the average GPA on my college soccer team is around a 3.7 and that almost all of the girls that I have played with in the past go to incredibly well respected colleges. For my upcoming career I will need all the skills I have learned playing sports, so yes, I may have the knees of the 60-year-old man and, yes, maybe I have lost a few brain cells from my multiple concussions, but I would not trade these 17 years of soccer for anything.

In that case, I stand corrected.

I used to play rugby myself. It was like being beaten up on a weekly basis, only school-sanctioned.

I’m not suggesting athlete equals stupid. I’m saying that allowing one’s child to participate in something that puts his/her health at risk is stupid. Would you hand your child a pack of cigarettes and say, “Go ahead and light up”? Would you let your child play in traffic? Would you let your child gnaw on lead based paint? No. But suffer repeated head trauma, broken bones, and joint injuries just so he/she can run up and down a field after a round rubber sphere full of air? Sure, you say. Well, I don’t get it.

While I am trying to understand that your experience with sports has been extremely negative, you undermine my ability to be empathetic when you spout ridiculous false equivalencies. Everything in life worth doing comes with risk, some physical, some emotional or psychological. And of course as parents we all want to minimize our children’s exposure to pain and injury. However, I’m glad that I never let my fear that Casey “might get hurt” get in the way of her doing the things SHE loves…I’m sure she would agree.

My experience with sports has been mostly neutral. In fact, I don’t care about sports one way or another. I do care about the wellbeing of children in our society–and as a society, we have gone way overboard with the emphasis on sports to the detriment of their physical health. Tbogg not only made my case for me, but also linked to the NYTimes article that further lays out the evidence. In the case of Elizabeth Lambert, you could also argue that her psychological health and/or moral sense is damaged , probably because she’s been taught for years that winning is all that counts. Lots of that going around, too. My original post (#7) was really meant to speak to the societal conditions, not specifically to your personal choices. We all really need to rethink this stuff. Casey could have learned teamwork, determination, overcoming adversity, flexibility, and many other important qualities in a pursuit that didn’t wreck her knees and what-all else that will develop as she ages. Being part of a drama troupe, for example, or a camping excursion, or as a volunteer. That’s the stuff my kids did, and they acquired character and skills with minimal risk to their health. I think it is a parent’s job to protect her child. That includes overrulling their judgment when it is poor. Look, my kids did lots of things they loved that were not in their best interests. One, at age 8, was a dreamer and she would wander off into the wilderness on walks without telling a soul, much less asking permission. I know SHE LOVED being out in nature and the solitude. After a couple of frantic searches for her, she finally learned loud and clear that she may not do that again. I call that responsible parenting–protecting her from harm.

While I asaked in an earlier thread for the L&T Casey’s opinion about the college gal soccer player meany, I didn’t realize that TBOGG would followup with news that the L&T Casey is moving on from collegiate sports for a demanding internship, I will always be interested in the pursuits of the various members of family TBOGG, be they bi-peds, quadrapeds or, an angel with dirty feet.
Each of you all have revealed just enough of your privates selves to be interesting, caring, tough, and furry.
I wish all of you the very best in your individual and collective pursuits, and so long for Thursday nights when you reveal your tender, doggie-loving and living selves for our amusement.
Go Team TBOGG GO!

It’s not like I want to step in the middle of this one, but Jeebus yoki, get your jollies judging much? There is a range of behavior and opinions on this particular topic and you’ve both got your points, plus I am sorry about what happened to your dad.

There is also a range in parenting styles, from enough helicoptering to make sure not a hair is ever harmed, to figuring that as long as they live until 18 it’s good enough. However, coming to Casey’s dad’s blog to do the sanctimony dance for the Tboggs’ having let Casey pursue her passion just sounds crass. Mommy wars indeed.

It’s my opinion, StringonaStick. Calling it “judging jollies” and my “sanctimony dance” is your way of being judgmental. I presume you have a few opinions of your own and express them when you feel strongly about them. Yes, there are ranges of roles and behaviors in every human activity, parenting being one. And there are detrimental roles and behaviors that hurt people and hurt society as a whole. I believe I have pointed one out.

Again, you jump to a false conclusion, that Casey did not participate in any of those other wonderful activities. She did. Camps and plays and dance and art and volunteering. And she did learn all the same valuable lessons that your daughters did. She just found that athletics was her passion…and we, as her parents, supported that passion. I will not apologize to you or anyone else for choices we made that you see as somehow detrimental to society. Casey is a smart, wonderful, amazing, talented, accomplised young woman who continues to learn and grow from all of her life experiences. Her athletic experiences have had a significant role in shaping who she is and we could not be prouder!

I hate like hell to jump in here, but:

Casey could have learned teamwork, determination, overcoming adversity, flexibility, and many other important qualities in a pursuit that didn’t wreck her knees and what-all else that will develop as she ages. Being part of a drama troupe, for example, or a camping excursion, or as a volunteer.

You’re kidding, right? A “drama troupe”? Jesus. I’m sorry, but hitting your mark in The Fantasticks is not exactly my idea of a great character developing experience.

Drama troupe… wow. Just…wow.

Having written, directed, and produced youth theatre (ages 6-14), I promise you that getting dozens of energetic youngsters–behind the scenes (stagehands, makeup, props et al.) and on the stage–to all come together in one seamless (well, hopefully not seam-splitting, if a drama) performance, requires them to focus, cooperate, learn their lines and duties to T, overcome their fears(a biggie) with their pride and dignity on the line, shut up during rehearsals (another biggie), back each other up no matter what, recover from near catastrophes (teetering scenery, a shoe flying into the audience), and so much else. It takes months of work and dedication, and I am talking about the children here. Me, I probably aged a few years. We took one production on the road, so the kids had to adapt on the spot to different venues. They did it! We did “A Christmas Carol” one year and cast as Tiny Tim a girl with severe, life-limiting, congenital defects. She had to cover her trach tube to utter her one line, “God Bless us, everyone.” I still tear up. So, yeah, if you have ever done it, it is a big wow. And you’re really working overtime to discredit my message now.

Working overtime in my own blog, you say? How presumptuous of me.

Look, let’s agree to disagree. You’re more of an ankle socks and Disney Princess on Ice type. We’re more of a spitting sunflower seeds and wearing a Yankees Suck t-shirt kind of family.

Tomato…to-mah-to.

On that note, the L&T Casey will be defending herself in a post tomorrow night. That should be interesting…

Actually, it’s beyond “NFL level physical” for soccer players, given that (a) they have no padding, (b) they have no helmets, (c) they don’t get to stand around for two minutes discussing the next two-second play, (d) they play continuously for 90 minutes (or more), (e) they play both offense and defense, (f) the field is MUCH bigger (almost twice the size), etc., etc.

As for ManU: I would say that the resentment of them is roughly the equivalent to the resentment of the NY Yankees — great to bitch about when you a fan of some other team, but deep down inside you wish your team could be just like them.

That, and “the refs are letting them play”.

Please. What they are doing is letting them foul.

L&T –

If only you were a few years older, and I a few decades younger…

Let’s just say that I am supremely impressed.

Being part of a drama troupe, for example, or a camping excursion

Yeah, nothing could possibly be dangerous while camping. Ummm… ever hear of bears (to name one example)?

And the performing arts? My ex-wife was a professional dancer from the age of 18 to roughly mid-30s; she started dancing seriously when she was about 6, and stopped because of the physical demands. I met her when she was 42, and she already had lost about 60% of the range of motion in one knee, plus was told by her MD that she would probably need a hip replacement before 50.

Your other examples of dangerous activities are just ludicrous. Clearly, there are at least trade-offs with regard to sports (positives vs. negatives). What, exactly, is the positive take-away from playing with matches and/or in traffic?

As Mrs TBogg said, there is nothing in life that is without risk. Your comments indicate that either you don’t know that, or that you think sports is somehow “beneath” you (or both).

Sending one daughter off to the jungle in Belize at age 16–did that. Sending other daughter off at age 16 on a sailing ship on a long voyage–did that. I never said my children were kept in a bubble, either physically or intellectually. I never said there is a way to keep a child perfectly safe, nor should anyone want to follow such a futile and inhibiting goal. I’m only saying I didn’t let them run up and down a field chasing a ball for years, crashing into other kids and causing, “three concussions (one from basketball), two hamstring tears, a blown ACL, a fractured collar bone, fractured ribs, a dislocated patella, and more broken fingers and toes than I can remember.”

P. S. wavydavy: Thanks for helping to make my point.