Chapter 46: Playing the Game

"Sean, how busy do you want to be next year?" asked Elena.

We were in the conference room. Danielle, Keisha, Eric, Trent, Spencer, Jorge, and Theo were also with us. It was Friday, August 2. There was one more week of camp. I would be on the road all week, wrapping up camps all over the Midwest. Jesse's was closing on Wednesday, The Indiana camps were Thursday, Kankakee and Peoria were Friday, and our home clinics were Saturday. Coach Neville's varsity clinics continued into the following week, and at the conclusion he would begin his tryout sessions for the school teams. I looked around the crowded conference room. It was already too small.

I wonder if John can move this wall out, make it bigger, I thought distractedly. There was plenty of room in the storage area. There was room, if it wouldn't be too expensive. A problem for another day. I returned to the question Elena had asked. I knew it was a loaded question. Might as well get right to it.

"How busy am I going to be?"

The ladies all glanced at each other, which made me a little nervous. Danielle and Keisha smiled, and Elena looked down at the papers in front of her. I had the feeling she already knew what was on them. She was just using them as a prop.

"Very busy," began Elena. "Mrs. Williams in South Bend is arranging for the use of two more fields. She says you're going to need them for next year. Unfortunately, they're going to be a couple of miles away from the fields we have been using, so we're going to have to treat it as a separate unit."

"Okay," I said. "Lindsey Marker has been running South Bend, and she's ready to take on a senior role. I'll talk to her about running all of South Bend, and maybe all of Northern Indiana."

"You might want to find somebody else for the Hobart and Merrillville area," suggested Elena.

"Really? Why? Don't you think Lindsey can handle it?"

"Lindsey's probably going to be too busy," said Danielle.

"Uh-oh," I said.

"Yup," confirmed Keisha. "Mishawaka and Elkhart are tired of getting thrashed by Porter players from South Bend. They want their own clinics."

"So Lindsey will be taking care of all of the South Bend area," I said.

"We've got requests from four more AYSO organizations in northern Indiana, too. Gary, Crown Point, Hammond, and Michigan City. They want coaching clinics, too."

I looked over to Eric and Trent. "I might have to have one of you take over Indiana," I said. I didn't want to send either of them, but it was looking like I might not have a choice.

"Probably not the solution," said Elena. "We can add at least twenty more programs around here, from Kenosha to Rockford to Joliet. You're going to need Eric, Trent, and probably a couple more supervising instructors, just for our area."

I put my head on my hands, with my elbows propped on the tabletop. "Christ, can we do this?" I asked.

Theo, sitting next to me, clapped me on the back. "You doubled in size last year to this year," he reminded us. "You can do it again."

"How many times can this business increase in size before we self- destruct?" I asked.

"Elena will be here to get everything set up, and I'll be here to look for instructors," said Theo.

"But will you have time to..."

"Buddy," he said with a smile, "it's my job. I'll find 'em."

I stared at him for a minute, but he didn't waver. "Okay," I said. "If you say you'll find 'em, you'll find 'em." I turned back to Elena and the girls. "Let the local organizations know it's up to them to procure the fields. Attendance will be limited by the available grass. We can run rec clinics and advanced clinics, just like usual, and ask them to schedule instructor tryouts in May. They will be responsible for getting the word out, but we'll also do a little promoting through the local tournaments and advertising in their local newsletters."

"I just had a thought," said Eric.

"Hit me," I said.

He held up a copy of Soccer Today. As part of the compensation package for all my instructors, I gave them a yearly subscription to the magazine. I got a group discount for it, and everybody enjoyed it.

"Did you know they have regional advertising available?" said Eric. "They publish different editions for the different areas of the country. The same articles and columns are in all the editions, and the national advertisers have first dibs on space, but you can sign up for ad space just in, say, the Midwest edition."

"Really? I didn't realize that," I said. It was an intriguing idea. "Do you know how much?"

"I didn't get that far into it," said Eric. "Maybe your contact in the group sales office can help you out, though."

"Good thought," I said. "I'll check it out."

"Don't worry about it," said Elena. "I'll handle it. I'll let you know what the costs are, along with their sales numbers. In fact, I'll get the costs and publication figures for all the regions. It's an easy calculation to make sure the cost per reader doesn't vary by more than a fraction from region to region. If it does, it's a bargaining point."

I looked at her in admiration. "It's a good thing you're married," I said, smiling.

Elena blushed. "Good gosh, Sean, I'm old enough to be your..." She paused, and then she smiled, too. "Well, okay, old enough to be your older sister."

Everybody around the table got a chuckle from the exchange.

I was going to be spending most of my last couple of weeks of summer break on the road. I had camper presentations to do at every site, and my last two weekends were taken up with coaching and referee clinics. I sent Theo and Spencer off as one team, Eric and Jorge as another, and Trent and I did the ones furthest away.

We scheduled two sets of coaching clinics, one for novice and rec team coaching, and one for travel and school coaches. Each clinic covered the essentials in kid and parent management, including those sideline pacers who can't help themselves, yelling out "instructions" to their little Tommy or Suzette out on the field. We also gave them books with drills outlined and diagrammed. The books had progressively stronger drills, able to take a beginner coach and walk him through several years of increasingly skilled teams of players. We put together a different book for the higher-level coaches, utilizing drills and skill tests culled from travel teams all the way through Division One college teams. Jesse, Eric, Trent, Spencer, Posey, and Eddie Whitehead all contributed to this compilation. I also used some variations we had gotten from Duane Olchick's clinics. I had written to him, explaining what I wanted to do, and he was kind enough to send, along with his written permission to use his name and his drills, some updated drills he and his brothers had developed for the German national team. It was a drill book worth its weight in gold, and I hoped we would find at least a few coaches who would appreciate it. The clinics were two-day affairs, two hours on Saturday and two hours on Sunday.

Concurrently, for the organizations that requested them, we ran referee clinics. This was a single session, going over the rulebook for referees and line judges. The biggest confusion in soccer, both from a spectator's and from a coach's standpoint, seemed to be the offside rule. There have been changes over the years concerning what constitutes offside, and we went over the rule in place. Some of our local instructors were always in attendance, usually participants in the clinic, and we used them to demonstrate some of the rules. Offside, proper throw-ins, corner kicks, goal kicks, free starts, interference, hand balls, infractions inside the box and outside the box, legal and illegal defensive setups against free kicks, all were covered. Our mission was to not only impart the correct interpretation of the rules, but to help create uniformity in refereeing. Teams from each area ought to be able to expect the same quality of officiating wherever they traveled, something that was sometimes lacking in advanced play.

On top of all this, Jorge and Tessa were running a couple of keeper clinics at home. We were using these two clinics as a gauge to determine if it would be advantageous to offer them everywhere. The response to the initial announcement was very positive, drawing inquiries from as far away as Oak Grove, twenty miles from our home base. I had already asked Theo to plan on adding more experienced keepers to our instructor roster wherever he could.

Elena had made an appointment for me at the Park District offices of Spring Lake, a nearby bedroom community that was growing very fast. The village had been constructed nearly overnight out of vast farm fields on the edge of the metropolitan area. Huge housing developments were splashed across the landscape, and as fast as the crews could finish a house, people were moving in. The village also had big shopping districts to accommodate the influx of residents, giving them a good tax stream. Their village parks system was quickly becoming one of the best in the state. Not only did they have money to put in good equipment, but they required every builder that wanted to come in and develop more empty land to deed a substantial piece of the property to the Park District. As a result, they had a lot of money to spend, and a lot of land to spend it on.

One of the trustees of the village, Madelyn Essex, had two sons in Porter camps, and she had asked the head of the Park District to meet with me. Trent and I stopped in there one Friday afternoon, on our way to Indiana. The offices were in a new, red brick building next door to the Village Hall. We walked in and looked around. There were more offices and conference rooms than they needed by far, but they had built for the future. We wandered around a little looking for the right office, and finally came into a reception area. There was a perky thirty-something lady at a giant curved desk. She looked like she spent a lot of her spare time in the gym. There was a brass nameplate on the corner of her desk that read April Oldham.

"Can I help you?" she asked brightly.

"Yes, we're here to see Mr. Lightner," I said.

She gave us one of those dismissive looks kids our age receive often. "If you're looking for summer employment for next year, boys, we won't be taking applications until after Christmas."

Trent, standing a little behind me, snorted. I was well used to the misjudgment, however.

"We're not here to apply for jobs. I have an appointment."

"Oh. Okay, then. Your names?" She shifted right into proper receptionist mode, the temporary slip already in the past and forgotten.

"Sean Porter and Trent Abbott."

"And what is this concerning?" she asked with false enthusiasm.

I just looked at her for a moment, until the happy, vacuous expression began to fade. "It's concerning the appointment I have with Mr. Lightner," I said.

She scowled for a moment, until it finally occurred to her I wasn't kidding. She picked up her telephone and punched a couple of buttons. She waited a few seconds, and then said irritably, "A Mr. Porter and Mr..." She looked up inquisitively at me.

I should have written it down for her, I said to myself. Or maybe it was time to order some business cards. "Abbott," I said.

" ... Mr. Abbott to see you," she said into the telephone. "They say they have an appointment..." She paused, listening. "Oh ... okay, then..."

She carefully put down the phone. Carefully looking just past me again, she said, "Mr. Lightner will be right out."

"Thank you very much," I said. Trent and I stepped away from her desk.

"Friendly," he muttered.

Before I could reply, the office door opened and a man in his middle years stepped out.

"Mr. Porter? I'm Dan Lightner," he said, stepping over and holding out his hand.

"Sean Porter," I said. "This is Trent Abbott."

"Mr. Abbott, great to meet you," said Lightner. "Come on in."

"Please, call us Sean and Trent," I said. "Anytime somebody says Mr. Porter, I start looking around to see if my dad is here."

Lightner chuckled. "I understand completely, Sean. You can call me Dan."

He walked around a large desk strewn with paper, architectural drawings, and what looked like wood samples.

"Sorry about the mess," he said, indicating his desk with a sweep of his hand. "Every builder coming in wants to have as much control over the look of the parkland they're donating as possible, even down to the color and type of mulch around the plantings." He picked up a couple of the wood chips. "So they send me this stuff, as if I care what color the wood chips are going to be. Anyway, have a seat."

Trent and I took the two chairs facing his desk, and Dan sat down with a sigh.

"So, Madelyn suggested we might be able to help each other out," he said.

"It depends on what you need help with," I said. "I'm no good with mulch colors."

He chuckled. "Neither am I," he said. He gave me an appraising look. "So what are you good at, Sean Porter?"

I knew at that moment he had done his homework on me. Negotiations had opened.

"I can kick the air out of a soccer ball," I said nonchalantly. "And I've got some friends who can teach kids how to do it, too."

"Soccer's a hot-button topic right now," said Dan. "Every neighborhood wants a soccer field, or a baseball diamond, or a pool. Or all three." He leaned back and put his hands behind his head. "Me, I'm partial to open lands and playgrounds."

"You're not a big sports fan?" asked Trent.

"Oh, I love sports," said Dan with a smile. "Swing sets and basketball courts don't take up as much room or resources as soccer or baseball fields."

"So, just because your residents want it, you don't feel you need to provide it?" I asked. It was a leading question, and Dan recognized it right away. He smiled in appreciation, understanding that I, too, had done my homework.

Dan leaned forward again, and propped his elbows on his desk. "I didn't say that." He stood up suddenly and strode over to a big map of the Village of Spring Lake on the wall. He tapped his finger on a section of the map that indicated a big, empty piece of land on the outskirts of the village.

"See this? Four hundred and fifty acres of the flattest, dullest land in the county," he said. "And I'm buying it."

"And what are you going to do with this dull, flat piece of land?" I asked.

He turned, crossed his arms, and favored us with a tight smile. "Got any suggestions?" he countered.

Over the course of the summer, my friends and I fell into a weekend routine. A bunch of us would gather together on Saturday afternoons over at the Lehigh house. Jake worked until five on Saturdays, but Jaimie was usually there with us. We would set up a volleyball net, or play softball in the field behind their house, and a bunch of our old high school friends would stop by. Jaimie and Jake took charge of food, firing up the grill late in the day, after Jake got home from the store. Trent, now that he was legal, brought beer for us, and Eric and I made sure the coolers were stocked with sodas and Gatorade.

Later, after dark, we would go to a movie, or perhaps we would stick around and play silly games in the field. Hide-and-seek in the woods could be adventurous at night, and sometimes we would just take a bunch of blankets and look at the stars. If it rained, we would go into the basement and continue our party there, turning on the stereo and hauling out the Trivial Pursuit game.

Late one Saturday night, our impromptu party was winding down. Jake and Jaimie had gone to a movie with Tiny and a bunch of others from the football team. Tracy and Ronny, the last remaining with us in the basement, helped Kayla and me clean up. The girls put the remnants of our snacks away, and Ronny and I filled up a trash bag with paper plates, cans, and stale chips. Once we were done, Tracy and her boyfriend said goodnight, and left by the kitchen door. It was after midnight, and Kay's parents had gone to bed long before. There was a light on over the sink, and we turned everything else off before going back down to the basement.