Soccerholics then .... Titans now

I have just returned to my desk after a Pre-Thanksgiving lunch in the conference room. Nancy , who is a proud mother of Daniel who plays for the Lawrence Free State Soccer team (Fire birds), arranged the snack for all of us. She played the soccer video cd which was given to each of the students who was graduating from the high school. She does this kind of stuff everytime, she keeps updating the staff members about the game fixtures / results, she shares the photos in which Daniel is captured playing. By the time I finished watching the entire video, it left me with nostalgia and I pondered over a few thoughts.

My parents never really thought about watching me playing soccer. They really don't know what sort of a player I am. They never let me down when I wanted anything, their answer was always a Yes, either it is summer coaching cap in Class 5,6,7 or participation in tournaments at Bits Pilani (for 2 consecutive yrs) or Football Selections in Anantapur. But I always wished they watch me playing. It was not only with my parents, many of the parents (in India) do not choose to be present at a camp or a match when their childre show their talent. Probably, this might be one of the factors because of which most of the athletic talent gets burried before it raises to a good level. I never had any of the girls watch it either. I had so many friends among girls in engineering, they all knew that I loved playing football and I'm good at it, but never did any of them intended to come and watch us play. The only people who showed up to the field were juniors and my friends. (They were plenty of support to us). We used to drive to different places to support other teams (cricket, basketball, volleyball) and they used to cheer us when we used to play tournaments.

The video also stirred up Nostalgia in me, I got back to all those moments when we used to celebrate / grieve upon victories and defeats. I used to bunk the last two clases eveyday not to miss out any chance of playing a game. Not just me, but I used to provoke a couple of others to join me. We used to play inside the classroom during lunch breaks, sometimes the ball used to go out of bounds and it scared the girls a couple of times ;). I cried non-stop for 30 mins when we lost the final match against ECE during my 1st yr. I used to save all my money that I earned to buy a good pair of studs. We collected donations to buy the balls as the P.E.T (Pithapuram) was a big headache in providing the eqipment for us.

We named ourselves "Soccerholics" after we gained some self-confidence that we could make a good team. As a team, we never had any significant victory outside our college but the passion for Football never really died. Everyone was as enthusiastic as I am which gave me the extra inch to do all this. The team name was eventually changed to Titans and I read that they had a few victories under their belts and I was glad to hear that. I felt very good everytime I see a new person joining us on the ground. Just that it gives me more and more satisfaction to meet people who have similar interests just as I do.

Ever since I bid farewell to BVRIT, I thought I'd never get a chance to play soccer again. But friends keep me alive by showing me alternatives. I very well remember my last days in VA when we played soccer with 10 people in each team, I never thought I could see myself getting such a wonderful farewell. If it was Keral, Sai and Polu in ODU, it is these Jayhawks here in KS.  Cheers!