September is a great month for sports. Baseball’s pennant races are heating up and the excitement of the World Series is just around the corner. The NFL and College Football previews are mind-boggling and a great distraction for any arm-chaired quarterback getting a leg up on his buddies.
The beaches of Southern California are at their best. The throngs of tourists are gone. The waters of the Pacific are still warm and somehow seem cleaner and more inviting. It is a great time to perfect bodysurfing tucks or to just horse around on the boogie boards with the kids. If I am lucky, I may even squeeze in an epic ocean kayak paddle with my water-dog friend before the winter storms exile me to the snow of the mountains
When September rolls around, there really is only one sport that consumes me: Coaching my kids’ Soccer teams. There is the challenge of learning 25-odd names and faces and the quirks that go with them. There is the sense of accomplishment of organizing reluctant parents into a circle of friends who turn into rabid Soccer fans every Saturday. There is the joy of meeting previous team members and friends on the fields. There is the pride of winning games and the satisfaction of turning losses into lessons of sportsmanship. September means coaching Youth Soccer and it is always a magical time of the year.
I can sense the changing of the seasons. My Sunday mountain biking rides are getting more pleasurable. The unbearable heat of the summer is almost gone. Cool, overcast mornings are soon replaced with glorious sunny afternoons that intensify the great feeling of being in the outdoors. This September there is another change in the wind. It is not crisp like the autumn air. It is not radiant like the equinoctial Sun. But it is more palpable. It is easy to feel it in the horrific pictures replayed on the TV, in the disturbing headlines of the newspapers and in the strident chatter of the radio.
Something is changing. It is history itself. Like watching the images of the fall of the Berlin Wall or the failed anti-Gorbachev putsch that signaled the disintegration of the Soviet Union, I find myself hypnotized, with the clear perception that an important historical event is unfolding right before my eyes.
I cannot help but share in the collective feelings of outrage, apprehension, reflection and determination resulting from the events leading to the now christened “First War of the Century.” Pundits and talking-heads seem to have all the solutions and provide us with multiple scenarios of how the future might unfold. But nobody knows; History is fraught with remarkable, unforeseen events. I do know one thing: Next September will be a great month for sports!
Originally written 18 years ago, before I discovered BlogSpot and WordPress.
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