A dream come true, not what I expected, but good none the less. Yesterday my wife called me at work to tell me my son wanted to join a sports league. I had told my son that if he saw any sports he wanted to join in school to bring me the paper so that we can find a way to pay for it. Last year he brought papers from several sports but we could not afford to pay for him to join. They wanted the money the next day. I never played sports when I was young, doctors never gave my mom permission and as a teen I didn't have any interest in sports. It wasn't till I was around 22 or 23 that I began to like football. When my son was born I saw a chance to have an athlete in the family. I was hopeful he would have the taste for sports that I lacked.

Well, the interesting about him wanting to play sports this year was his choice of sports. He wanted to join a soccer team. Why is that strange? Well considering that soccer is not a major sport in the US, it's barely existent in Puerto Rico (the only Latin country I know that doesn't have soccer as their national sport) and he's never really played it before, I found it unusual for him to choose this particular sport. But none the less I was excited. I, however, wanted to make sure this is what he really wanted. I didn't want to spend $85 for the registration and buy him shoes and shin guards only to have him quit on me once he realized what he was really getting into. After all, he pretty much chose this because his school friend joined. What I did was take him to the park where I know people play soccer in the afternoons. I wanted him to see the game himself; I wanted him to know that soccer could be a pretty rough game. They kick, push, hit, trip and scream. He tends to be a bit of a crybaby when his little brother hits him. He saw, he thought about it and eventually decided that he wanted to try and told me he would try his best.

I gave him that pep talk you see in movies where you tell them "it's not about winning or losing, it's about having un" and " win or lose you're still a winner to me". He seems happy and excited. What's even more interesting is that the same place where we signed him for soccer will also have s flag football season after soccer and a baseball season after flag football. I told him to play all of them and he accepted. And his little brother, 4 years old, will play baseball when the season starts.

I am so exited; I look forward to going to the practices and the games. I look forward to the screaming and cheering. I will have to buy a camera to take pics to send to my mom. I even have an idea to make money off of this. I have done magazine covers with pictures for my son's cousin and his teammates and their parents paid me for them. They were very happy with the pictures. Maybe I can do it again. I will start with my son in his uniform and make a sample and maybe I can make a small business out of this. Who knows?

Well I look forward to posting updates on practices and game results. This will be one fun year.