Chapter 1: Meet Sean Porter

You wonder, sometimes, how you get yourself into situations like these. Looking back, I have to believe that, somewhere along the timeline of my life, I was led to this point, that I would be here no matter how I led my life. But I digress...

Flash back to 1980. At that time, I was a fifteen-year-old jock, having spent the past several years honing my skills on sandlot baseball fields. At some point during the previous year, I caught the soccer fever that was just beginning to grip the American landscape. By the end of that summer I was playing on two teams, and earning a little side money as a youth referee. Since they had some trouble getting enough qualified adults to be referees, I had the chance to work games played by older kids than I otherwise would have been allowed to referee.

Typically, I would be a referee for the real young ones, say six to eight years old. These kids would play what I liked to refer to as "swarm-ball". Every kid on the field, except the designated goalkeeper, would swarm to the ball like bees around a hive. No matter where it was on the field, they would kick at the thing as if it were a biting dog, all the time laughing, shouting, and having absolutely no idea where it was going to go next. The coaches and parents, meanwhile, would be screaming on the sidelines, as if the sheer weight of their voices would make little Kimmie or Matthew suddenly do a bicycle kick like Pele and score the game-winning goal.