Personal Website for TED HENRY
After 30 years of banging around on soccer fields I thought I had seen just about everything. But the incident described below, however, was beyond the pale. I had never been so blatantly assaulted, whether on a soccer field or off.
At the beginning of the game, I was standing near the opponent’s goal facing the far end where the ball was in play. All of a sudden, boom, my lights went out. I found myself facedown on the field not knowing how I had gotten there. I soon realized there was a gap in my memory. Collecting my wits and getting off the ground I turned around to see if I could get a clue to what had happened. The only player in the vicinity was the goalkeeper who was standing there grinning at me. I know he said something obnoxious while wearing a malicious grin but I don’t remember exactly what. As one would expect, the ref was following the action at the other end and had not seen the keeper ram a forearm into the back of my neck without provocation. But I was on the ground and he knew he had missed something significant at a time and place where there should not have been any action whatsoever.
Yeah, I was angry, but I didn’t get out of control or lose my cool. All too often it’s the player that reacts to a foul that gets caught and anyway, the game had just started so I had time to sort things out. However it was clear I would have to watch my back around this guy. A short time later my teammate George gave me a perfect pass behind the defense so that it was just me and the keeper. The keeper came roaring out to cut down my shot angles, as he should, but he was looking me in the eye and not watching the ball. Usually keepers advance in a crouch so that they have the flexibility to lunge one direction or the other, but he was uncharacteristically upright. Obviously he was after me and not the ball. I only had a second to do something so I wound up and slammed the ball right into his face. I could easily hit a head-sized target from that distance and he went down like a sack of potatoes. This was not something I planned; it was just an instinctual play accomplished in a fraction of a second. Often when I am pressured around the goal, everything seems to slow down and flow in slow motion. I’m not focusing on the goal, the opposition, or the ball but taking in the whole scene at once. The best way I can describe it is it’s like defocusing your eyes in order to see a 3-d object hidden in one of those images that used to be popular (i.e. stereogram). Athletes refer to this as being in the “flow.”
The ball bounced back to me, and with the keeper face down, I just casually pushed the ball into the net using the inside of my foot. When I turned around the keeper was still on the ground. I didn’t know if he was injured or just pulling a “Euro-flop.” Soon the ref and a teammate were on the ground with him. Before long the ref stood up and called for towels and ice. OK, he probably wasn’t faking an injury. Eventually they got him rolled over and there was blood, an alarming amount of blood. I assumed he had a broken nose, which characteristically bleed profusely. After more delay they got him into a sitting position and, after more time assisted him to the sideline. But just before exiting the field he turned around and gave me the finger. Wow! What a jerk. Well, it was better to just leave him be and not stir things up. As is often said; don’t get into it with an idiot because observers might not be able to tell the difference. I hoped I was done with him for the rest of the game.
Later in the first half I saw the keeper arguing with his coach, probably because he wasn’t being put back in the game. It’s just a recreational game for Pete’s sake. However once halftime was over, there he was, back in goal, tape on his nose and gauze up his nostrils. It seemed really stupid to get back on the field with an injury that severe. I was confident, however, that he would be a lot slower. But who knows what evil thoughts of retribution were going through his head? I was getting the idea that this guy had a screw loose.
As it happened, George soon gave me another perfect pass, and when I wound up to slam the ball, the keeper covered his head with his arms and ducked. Oh boy. But my windup was a fake, and with the keeper hiding his face for a moment, I just jogged the ball into the net. That is just about the most deflating play that can be made. With a big grin George came over and gave me a fist bump of approval for a play well done. The keeper was immediately yanked from the field and some pretty heated words were exchanged with his coach.
The thing about intense teamwork sports like soccer is that players like this invariably get weeded out well before reaching this level of competition. Having to play shorthanded because a teammate cannot behave or control his temper eventually gets one dropped from the team. So there I was, 49 years old, and had never seen someone who had less business being on the field. Who knows, maybe he had personal problems that were spilling over into his recreation. A high-pressure job, alcohol abuse, and marital problems can do it.**
Walking off the field after the game, the opposing coach caught up with me for a private chat. He had seen the original foul and wanted to make sure I knew he did not accept that type of play from his team. He apologized for it. The reason for the heated discussion I observed on the sideline was that the player’s actions were the last straw following a string of obnoxious incidents. His ID card was returned signaling that he was kicked off the team. That was likely what caused the heated words on the sideline I had seen. I could tell from our conversation that the coach, and most likely the whole team knew that I was atop the scoring leaderboard (which covered all leagues in metro Seattle). Perhaps this knowledge had been the catalyst for the foul at the beginning of the game.
That coach knew my team had been mediocre the previous year but suddenly became scorching hot and wanted to know how (even though I’m sure he had a pretty good idea). I let it out that three of us came over from the relatively famous Polonia team after it broke up and remade my new team’s offense. He put it out there that if I ever became dissatisfied with my team that he would welcome my transfer. So this conversation was really about recruiting, like the most accomplished team coaches are known to do. I’ve been recruited before so I knew the drill. I didn’t let him get his hopes up. I explained I was not going to abandon my two best friends that I so enjoyed playing with, no matter how poor the team might do. Not that we were doing poorly. After the first season we got advanced up two divisions, which was unprecedented. We appealed but the head official at the hearing pointed out the dramatic jump in scoring came after three ex-Polish players joined this team. Our appeal was summarily denied. The appeal was worth a try, but it didn’t matter. I remained atop the scoring leader board the next season as well, and the team advanced up yet another division. I was having a good time.
While the problematic sociopathic player was no longer an immediate problem, I have no illusions that an adult over 30 years old exhibiting such severe issues will be able to reverse his serious character flaws. It rarely happens.
** During my years playing in Portland I once had a teammate who had a bad habit of getting ejected for fighting. He had a hair-trigger temper, and players in the league knew just how to get him to blow up. He had excellent soccer skills and would have been valuable to the team if he could just control his anger. He was very close to being dismissed from the team and that would have been a shame. I knew he had a high-pressure job as an advertising executive, I thought he drank too much, and he hinted that relations with the opposite sex were not going smoothly. Oh, and he drove a fluorescent green Porsche which was pretty much an in-your-face choice.
One day I decided maybe if we pissed him off before the game that maybe he would get it out of his system, at least for the duration of the game. So I asked him if he knew the difference between a porcupine and Porsche. Upon delivering the punchline, “on a porcupine the pricks are on the outside,” he blew up and chased me all over the field. Eventually he realized how stupid he looked and calmed down. He managed to hold it together for that game and I hoped that we had found a solution. It was puzzling, however, that he did not show up for the next game. Afterwards we received tragic news that he had been driving on a residential street, presumably to the game, when a vehicle flew off a freeway overpass and landed directly on him in his Porsche. He was gone in an instant. Life can be very unfair. For many years afterward I would think of Craig every time I saw a brightly colored Porsche.