I Measure Out My Life With World Cups

Though I love good coffee, and drink it daily, I have measured out my life with World Cup tournaments.

The 1982 edition marked the actual, live beginning of my journey with the moveable feast; Spain was the host country, I was attending school in Germany. I had, of course, seen footage of Pelé and his magic, and had a few years earlier commenced my research into the history of the tournament. But now I was in Germany, in Europe, and the sport was with me 24 hours a day.

I began playing Fußball in New Hampshire, as a junior high school student, and continued in Clearwater, Florida, on school and club teams. Germany was next. My father was ordered to duty in Kaiserslautern, a small city in the Rheinland Pfalz. My mother, two sisters, and I accompanied him.

One of my coaches in Florida, Otto Lohmann, was a German, and I learned a lot from him. He was my first genuine coach, an individual who knew the sport and knew how to manage players. At the time I had no idea I would one day play and live in Deutschland, but I prefer to think that it was my destiny. In Florida I became a fan of the television show “Soccer Made in Germany,” which was moderated by the great Toby Charles and broadcast on PBS channels.The program was a Sunday-morning priority, and Charles brought the Bundesliga into my life. I watched what would soon become my club team, 1 F.C. Kaiserslautern, on that show.

On to Germany. That’s where it all shifted into overdrive.

I attended a Department of Defense school, for which I played soccer. I also tried out for a German club team, T.S.G. Kaiserslautern, and became a member of the A-Jugend squad. Life was perfect.

In May of 1981 I found myself at the home of the Kehls, watching Germany play Brazil in a friendly. I was also there for dinner; Frau Kehl had cooked pork and red cabbage. We drank riesling that Herr Kehl made his son and me dilute with water. I had already adopted Die Mannschaft as my national team, but that match firmly placed the team in my being. Herr Kehl was my trainer at T.S.G., and I admired him greatly. He was the best trainer I would ever have. Germany lost that friendly 2-1.

Larry Day and Scott Babos were among my best friends in Kaiserslautern. They were fellow Air Force Brats, and they were my DoD school teammates. We spent hours together on the training pitch, on buses traveling to away matches and home again, and playing together for the Kaiserslautern American High School Red Raiders. Scott and I had a standing appointment at a local raquetball facility near my house, at which we played endless one-on-one matches to improve our dribbling and ball control in tight spaces. The small plexiglass window on the door of the court was the target of our free-kick competitions. Larry joined us as often as he could at outdoor three-on-three matches to stay in shape during the brief off seasons. They both played for German club teams as well.

The World Cup is back, and my journey continues. This tournament is especially meaningful to me, because my two friends and I are, beginning this evening, writing another chapter of our friendship. At the beginning of this year Larry phoned and asked me to get in touch with Scott. “I’ve got an idea for us,” he said. A few days later we heard Larry’s idea: He wanted to buy tickets for the three of us to World Cup matches taking place in Los Angeles, my home, and Seattle, where Scott lives. The last time the three of us were together was in late 2000.

Larry is, as I write, in the air between California and New Hampshire, and Scott is somewhere between Seattle and L.A. They are joining me here in Los Angeles this evening, and tomorrow we will be in the stands watching the U.S. battle Paraguay. On Sunday morning we take to the roads in an RV, headed up the beautiful coast, Seattle our ultimate destination, where we will attend the match between Australia and the U.S.

I am measuring out this thing called life. Larry and Scott will meet Angela for the first time. These two men who mean so much to me, who became part of my story, my existence, will now become part of my World Cup journey. It’s going to be our journey. It will be, I am certain, epic. And I’ll be documenting it here.