SOCCER MOMS - Part 1 (Remastered)
Author's Note: First, I want to thank everyone who went through the Soccer Trilogy with me. It was my first attempt to submit stories after reading them for many years. I was not sure how my story would be received and you made it a successful run. I learned a lot over the process of almost two years from my first evening at the keyboard until the trilogy finally ended. If you are reading this for the first time, I certainly encourage you to read all the stories. I think they're pretty good. And while I am biased in that opinion, the numbers bear me out.
Second, my biggest early failing was poor editing. I apologize to everyone who had to plod through it and if you are about to embark on reading the trilogy, I beg your indulgence and ask you to work through it. I got better.
Author's Original Notes: 1) there are underage characters in this story but they will neither have, see nor even hear any sexual activity; 2) this is a work of fiction and so certain aspects of this story involving youth soccer programs, college soccer programs and college soccer recruitment are not meant to be factually accurate, but are there because they help advance the storyline. If this bothers you, it would be best not to read this. However, to me, it would be like not reading Harry Potter books because magic doesn't really exist; and 3) this part is longer than most because I must get some storylines started. Please don't bail on this just because the first installment is long.
"Ugh!" Carol Rogers let out a sigh of both exasperation and worry. She was about to take her youngest daughter to soccer tryouts for the Blue Lightning, an elite soccer program that had become woven into her family's life. It wasn't so much the tryouts that bothered Carol, it was the cuts.
Carol O'Rourke Rogers was a 5' 7" redhead with emerald eyes to match her ancestry from the Emerald Isle. She was not petite but she was in very good shape for a woman of 48 years. She had been an athlete herself and had played soccer at a small Liberal Arts College with a small Division III sports program. It had been there that she met Paul Rogers. They fell in love and married right out of college. They had quickly started a family and now had three daughters.
Paul worked as a salesman for a large manufacturing company which afforded the couple a decent income. Carol had studied to be a CPA and she did freelance accounting work from home. This allowed her to be there for the children and still make some money to make things easier for the couple.
Carol was an attractive woman, not drop dead gorgeous but much better looking than she ever gave herself credit for. Along with the red hair and green eyes, she had the porcelain skin of her forebears. She was also a bit chesty at a 38D. She had always been very smart and very athletic and very competitive, and she never seemed to have a boyfriend. She thought it was because she wasn't pretty enough, but she never realized that she intimidated a lot of would-be suitors. She was at the top of her high school class in academics and would have started for the Varsity Boys Soccer Team if that had been allowed in her day.
When Paul came along in her Senior year of college, he loved her with all his heart and she fell in love right back. He would later admit to her that he had been just as intimidated as all the other guys, but he was just so drawn to her that with no real hope she would say yes, he had asked her out. Well, she did say yes and the rest was history.
Carol's love of sports had been passed on to her children, and all three had played soccer as youngsters. Her oldest, Abigail, had loved to play, and their local soccer team had given her plenty of fun while also providing all the advantages of competitive team sports which Carol and her husband Paul felt helped build character. That all changed the day Steve Pennington came to town.
Steve Pennington had played some professional soccer. He had been primarily a back-up goalkeeper for a number of the teams in the US Men's Soccer League and at six foot six inches tall and 220 pounds he was an imposing figure. His professional experience and his imposing size made him a force in the Blue Lightning program the day he arrived. He also had a daughter Abigail's age, at that time, twelve. Steve was determined to get his daughter into a Division I school and beyond. However, he was also intent on creating a whole program that would become a breeding ground for star soccer players, with his daughter Susan being the first.
When this first started, Carol was very enthusiastic. Pennington's own skills and his connections allowed him to quickly establish a very fine program and Abigail flourished with the more advanced training. However, the success of the Blue Lightning Program did not go unnoticed (in part due to promotion by Pennington himself) and each year more girls came from farther and farther away to try out for the team. And each year, the girls had to try out for their spot on the team. You didn't get to stay just because you were there the previous year. It eventually caught up to Abigail in the summer before her junior year of high school.
Despite all of her own improvement as a soccer player, the competition had become just too tough and Abigail was cut from the Blue Lightning. Initially, it had devastated Abigail and she did not touch a soccer ball for a week. It all worked out in the end. One of the rules of the "Blue Lightning Way" as Pennington called it was that the girls could not play for their high school teams. No longer a part of the Blue Lightning, Abigail was free to join her High School Team. She was starting Varsity Junior Year, was a Co-Captain Senior Year and went on to play for four years at that same Division III program where her mother had played.
The next child to go through this was her next oldest daughter, Brianna. Brianna was more like her mother. Abigail was wiry and quick. She was a little shorter and had a thinner frame. Her Blue Lightning training had taken her speed and added a nimbleness to her ball control skills that had made her an excellent scorer. Brianna was taller and a bit stockier in an athletic way. Brianna had made the thirteen-year-old team that same year Abigail had not been chosen. The Blue Lightning had already grown to have a team for 16-year-olds, like Abigail (and Susan Pennington) down to 13-year-olds.
The next year Brianna was not as fortunate. As a mother, Carol wanted her daughter to make it, but as a soccer player, she saw the handwriting on the wall. But apparently so did Brianna. The day Brianna was told she had been cut, Carol went into her room to console her, acutely aware of how painful it had been for Abigail the year before. So, Carol was a bit surprised when she went into Brianna's room to find her looking almost relieved and holding the form for a Lacrosse Summer Camp. This was Brianna's true calling. She played Junior Varsity as a Freshman and then three years of Varsity. She too went on to play her sport in college as well.
Now she was going to be driving her third daughter, Katie, for her try out for the 16-year-old team. But Carol had no real reason to worry. Katie was good, really good. She was the perfect combination of Abigail's quickness and finesse and Brianna's size. When she was eight, her Rec League asked Carol and Paul to let her play with the ten-year-olds. When she was twelve, Steven Pennington lobbied them to let her try out for the 13-year-old travelling team. Although a bit hesitant, the parents agreed and Katie made the team. She didn't start but she was already showing signs of being an exceptional talent, even against the tougher competition the travelling teams faced.
Katie would stay on the 13-year-old team the next year but that experience playing against older competition had improved her game even more. So, as Carol pulled into the parking lot and Katie jumped out of the car and ran over her friends and teammates from the 15-year-old team, Carol sighed and fretted over the tryouts. But as a soccer player herself, she knew she did not have to worry. Certainly, she had much less to worry about than that poor woman who had just come barreling into the parking lot just as the tryouts were beginning.
Jennifer Smith was running late, again. Coming late would always draw some stares, but as she got out of the car, the stares did not turn away. Her 5-foot 3-inch frame was petite. She had a flowing blond mane that came over her shoulders and was half-way down her back. She also had eyes so big and blue, most of the other parents there could tell her eye color even across the parking lot. She had on a dark business suit but had managed to get sneakers on her feet as she stepped out of the car. While most of her body was hidden by the suit it was noticeably clear that her breasts were very big. In actuality, they really weren't that big. Her bra size was 36C. But on her short frame they appeared much larger.
Around the back of the car came another, smaller version of the driver only dressed in shorts, tee shirt, shin guards and soccer cleats. Coach Tiffany Hochbauer, the coach for this age group, was calling the girls in and the new arrival streaked across the parking lot and onto the field to join the rest. One thing everyone noticed immediately, she was fast. Very fast.
Jen Smith watched her daughter fly to the field and for the first time that day she actually had a moment to relax. Today had been an incredibly stressful day for a woman who at thirty-eight had already had too much stress in her life. Married at twenty-three, a mother at twenty-four and a widow at thirty. Soccer had always been the center of her life growing up and she was very talented. She was gifted athletically, and she worked hard to make the most of that gift. Her size had been both a curse and a blessing for her sports career. A curse because people underestimated her because of her size; a blessing because they never knew what hit them when she got on a field. So much so that she even played soccer at a smaller Division I school. It did not lead to fame and fortune, but it did get her a good education without any student loans.
The soccer field had also become a refuge for her daughter, Melanie. Like her mother, she was often overlooked at first because of her size. But she was like Mercury, the winged messenger of the gods, on a soccer field. And along with that speed was a natural gift of great agility and a hard-earned grace with the soccer ball at her feet, developed over hours and hours of hard work. In college, this combination had earned her mother the nickname Mighty Mouse. Whenever they saw her on a soccer field, Melanie's Grandparents called her MM2.
Jen's husband, Melanie's Father, John Smith had been killed when a truck with brakes that were worn well past a safe level could not stop at an intersection and t-boned his car, killing him instantly. The soccer field was a place where Melanie could escape her loss for a little while. She could spend time practicing and focusing on her skills work and not think about the father she never really got to know.
Jen had been working retail and caring for her daughter when John was killed. Her parents came to live with their daughter and granddaughter after the crash and were able to help Jen out so she did not have to work at the store. She threw herself into helping the law firm that was taking the personal injury case. Based on her work, the firm suggested she should go to school and get a Paralegal Certificate, which she did.