Tuesday, May 21, 2019

148th Goal Makes a Father Reflect on the Journey


One day you are taking your son to Spartan Stadium to watch the San Jose Clash play soccer and the next day that same son sets the career goals scoring record for the league that the Clash inaugurated. 
Like most memories of a father with a grown son, those two days are separated by many years and a healthy amount of haze and blur.  But regardless of the lack of precision in the memory-fabric between those two days, those two days are as clear to me as if they were yesterday and today.

Chris and his brothers where already far too cool and far too interested in the game to sit with me in the cheap seats at Spartan Stadium that evening.  Like some of those summer nights at Spartan it was warm, and we could make it through a game with shorts and no jackets.  The three boys traded positions between the bench I was sitting on, the snack stand, and wherever they might see Crazy George.  The one thing that they wanted on this (I think visor night) was to get those visors autographed at the end of the game.  It was a Clash 1-goal loss as I recall as my three sons lined up at the front row of Spartan Stadium to get the prize they were hoping for … some Clash player to sign their new visor. 

We drove home over the Sunol Grade (the hill between the East Bay and the Silicon Valley) back to Danville that night and the last thing I would have ever thought was that 12 or so years later I would begin a virtual ritual of driving back over that Sunol Grade on Saturday nights from March through October after watching the next generations of the San Jose Clash play – with my son in one of their uniforms.  (Yes generations … first Earthquakes at Spartan Stadium then reincarnated Earthquakes at Buck Shaw then Earthquakes at Avaya Stadium). 

Well … writing that it was ‘the last thing I would have ever thought’ … is probably amazingly inaccurate.  To be truthful, the last thing I would have ever thought was that the boy asleep in the passenger seat (with an autographed visor) as we drove up Interstate 680 through Pleasanton that night would one day score more goals than any other player for the team that we had just watched in the league we had just watched. 

I think after these past 16 years I would have learned to stop being amazed by my son’s successes.  But that is a lesson I have never been able to learn.  I make Mrs. Wondo get to the games at Avaya early just so I can walk around and catch a glimpse of the occasional “8” Jersey on a fan with a familiar surname on its back, and simply enjoy the fact that my son is playing professional soccer.

It has been such a long and rewarding career for Chris, Lindsey, their girls, and all of our family and friends.  But keeping with my son’s traditional script, just when you think he can’t amaze you – he amazes you. 

Every athlete dreams of breaking a record.  Every athlete also dreams of breaking a record in grand style – and a four-goal game that includes the game winning goal can fit into that grand style category. 

Every dad dreams of his son breaking a record (in grand style).  This dad’s heart was filled with the sight of something much more important than that however.  When Chris came out in the 90th minute he gave his captain’s armband to Anibal before leaving the field.  At the end of the game Anibal came up to Chris and took the captain’s armband and put it back on Chris’ arm and gave him a hug.  Soon thereafter the Quakes players hoisted Chris up and threw him in the air in celebration --- a team celebration for a team accomplishment. 

That evening 25 or so years ago – taking my sons to the Clash game on a warm summer evening and driving home with them all asleep in the car …. And this past Saturday afternoon in the cool rain at Avaya when my son drove himself to the Quakes game and then drove his oldest daughter home with him over the Sunol Grade … those two points in time are so different yet so memorable. 

I could not be prouder of Chris nor happier for the three people who rank up there with me in terms of his fans:  Lindsey, Emersyn, and Brynlee.