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.
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