Goal of the year!

We continue to have Jamie in the low-impact, easy-going soccer group at school and he is more and more enthusiastic all the time. While no official score is kept Jamie is one of a number of kids who keeps a very careful tally of the goals. Interestingly, he seems equally happy when any member of his team scores a goal as when he does it himself. Sarah and I, and Connor for that matter, like to see Jamie do it though and the other week he had an amazing one. He has moved up an age group lately so in any given week, depending on the make-up of the sides, he may be playing with some older, bigger, faster kids. He doesn't complain though and really goes in and mixes it up. He has learned also to move out ahead of the pack and wait for the ball to come out. He was doing precisely this the other day and sure enough the ball popped out of the scrum and came directly to him. There was no one in front of him as he took off with the ball, but he was a good 50-60 feet away and so it wasn't long before a much older kid, at least 6 inches taller than him, had caught up and placed himself between Jamie and the goal. Jamie plowed bravely forward and the kid got tangled in his own feet and fell by the wayside. At this point the rest of his team, and the parents, were all yelling "Go! Go! Go!" (I may have been yelling a little too). But now yet another bigger kid had caught up and placed himself in Jamie's path. Jamie didn't pause however and kicked it directly through the kid's legs. The ball dribbled and dribbled and dribbled and edged over the goal line, just before another kid tried to sweep it away. There was much rejoicing.

It was was truly epic. The whole thing seemed to have transpired in slow motion. I really had to work hard to contain my enthusiasm. For his part Jamie was pleased but not overly exultant. I guess he's heard the phrase "Act like you've been there before." He was, however, very gratified when I decided the goal had earned him a trip to the donut store on the way home.