"Soccer is so . . .normal. And Soccer is Life. And Normal is Great" By Hilary Braysmith On a grassy area behind the bleachers, little girls and boys played a pick-up game together. They stopped to watch the Seraphs of St. Bonaventure high in their hunter green and white uniforms take the field. Tiny admiring faces peeked through the chain link fence as soccer families and spectators prepared to watch America's future kick the ball. Soccer playing girls are such a familiar, normal sight, a comforting experience radiating discipline, character, and the sense that all is well. We forget that this vision, originating in Atlanta, is quite recent. Now, it permeates our national identity and has become, almost unnoticed, a mainstream definition of who we are as a people. At the Olympics, we admired the superior level of play of Team USA and we cheered them to victory in the WWC but it was their winning behavior off the field that captured and holds our hearts. We, who weary of greed and violence in our culture, watched with relief as a group of ego-less young women offered us a thrilling alternative; we embraced them as the nation's favorite daughters. At first, girls' soccer symbolized legally imposed fairness, sports equity mandated by Title IX. Later, it signified a positive avenue of parenting as research demonstrated that sports are good for girls, helping to maintain their health while teaching them some confidence. Last July, we recognized that girls are good for sports and athletic girls and women good for the country. Girls' soccer now stands for hope, even national redemption. At the grass-roots level, we have reached an unspoken understanding that we need women's soccer. Soccer is life. It is about lessons and character which last, not about winning which doesn't. St. Bonaventure and Nordhoff dueled on the grass. #18, Brenda McDowell, assisted on a goal and did her bit plugging up the midfield, frustrating rival Nordhoff as she led a teammate with a long pass down the flank, or slid a shorter one around a defender. Brenda and I chatted after the game and later. Naturally, we spoke soccer. Brenda was unaware that I already knew some things about her. For example, I knew she started as a freshmen on a team that competed in the state semi-finals, and that she scored a goal her first five games until benched with an injury for part of the season. But in our conversation, Brenda discussed the goals she sets rather than scores. She talked about keeping up her grades, about the friends she made through soccer, about how good it feels to work hard and then accomplish something. She explained that she trained extra hard on her own to insure she would start again this year. I asked her how club had gone. Brenda downplayed the fact that her under 15 team beat the under 16 teams, claiming "It was a year wasted because it wasn't challenging enough." This year, her club switched to the tougher Coast league to improve their game instead of just dominating. Brenda said her teammates at St. Bonaventure's taught her that "everyone is in different grades and in different social groups and you may have problems to work out with other players but on the field you are a team and you fight for each other". Brenda is barely 16 and wise. Whether Brenda continues down the soccer path or not, she will always perpetuate its legacy and remain part of the fabric of its social benefits. They may never compete internationally, but Brenda, her teammates and the millions like them are also the nation's daughters, and they represent us well. I began to recall the cramped opportunities and limiting expectations of earlier times-for both genders. Both men and women ran well in those days, he the office and races and she the home. For generations, when we pictured stability, security, a healthy family and nation, we conjured up a Norman Rockwell mother in the kitchen, baking bread. Unconsciously we have added the US Team and soccer playing girls to that reassuring image. I am lucky. I am witnessing a generation of girls and women extend their spaces to include the court, the gym, the field, as boys and men cheer them on. I thought about Brenda and her soccer buddies growing up complete, having choices, learning great life lessons in such a run-of-the-mill way like playing soccer, and how this kind of up-bringing is becoming typical. But will the girls of Brenda's day and the women of earlier eras connect with each other? How can she explain her ordinary activities to women to whom devotion to sports would have been extraordinary, if not unimaginable? Pondering further, I concluded that, in fact, the generations have a great deal in common. Day-to-day, hum-drum phrases link Brenda and her pals with their grandmothers, describing their different unremarkable activities andspaces with the same normal words. The terms for home-making skills-cleaning, food preparation, eating, and laundry-still define what girls do (and boys, too) and women's work hasn't changed at all.	Girls' Tournaments - WAGS - Sony Texas Cup UEFA - Rosters and Results - News and Schedule US National Team - Rosters and Results - News and Schedule Tips From Coaches - Make the Team! Some hints for youth players headed for "open" tryouts Reviews - Books - Videos - Equipment Girl's Issues Shasta's Corner High School Teams Girls clubs Camps Training Tips College links