by Dave Hannigan
Dave Hannigan is a columnist with the Irish Echo (New York), The Evening Echo (Cork, Ireland) and the Mail on Sunday (Dublin). An award-winning journalist and author, he has written five non-fiction books and one children's novel. A father of three boys and an adjunct-professor of history at Suffolk County Community College in Selden, he has lived in Rocky Point for the past ten years and has coached the Rocky Point United U-11 boys in the LIJSL since last September. Before moving to Long Island in 2000, he spent eight years as a soccer correspondent for the Sunday Times of London, covering the Irish national team and the Premier League in England.
Now, in conjunction with the Long Island Junior Soccer League, Mr. Hannigan is premiering his second children's novel, Runt of the Litter, exclusively on www.lijsoccer.com. The story of young Sam Healy's quest to make his local travel soccer team and live up to the high expectations set by his older, more athletic brothers is a story that will ring true with many young soccer players and their parents. Check back every Wednesday morning throughout the Summer and Fall for the weekly release of the next chapter of the story. Happy Reading!
CHAPTER ONE
Travel team try-out. Four words to strike fear into the heart of every nine year old boy. Not real fear of course. Just that queasy
feeling in the stomach you get when the teacher asks you a question because he knows you haven’t been paying attention.
That’s exactly what Sam Healy felt as he read the flyer Mrs. Alberti placed on every desk in the fourth grade classroom. And he couldn’t really figure out why.
TRAVEL TEAM TRY-OUT
WHO: Fourth grade boys and girls
WHEN: Saturday, March 23, 2011
WHERE: Elementary School
TIME: 3-4.15 pm
All boys and girls should wear shin guards and soccer cleats. They must also bring a soccer ball!
He’d known the try-outs were coming. They happened the same weekend in March every year. The Saturday after the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. He’d been counting the days since the end of the Christmas vacation.
‘Are you going?’ asked his friend Danny Petrino, waving the sheet of paper in his hand.
‘Eh, of course I am,’ replied Sam. ‘I’ve been waiting for this for years.’
He had been waiting for these try-outs for longer than he could remember. He’d never known a time when his weekends weren’t spent being dragged to watch his three older brothers play for Rocky Road Stallions. Now, finally, it was going to be his turn.
‘I wonder how many they’ll pick,’ said Danny.
‘Fifteen in every squad,’ said Sam, like a man who’d spent his whole life watching these teams play.
‘Always fifteen.’
‘I heard 60 fourth grade kids turned up last year and most of them only got 15 minutes to show their stuff,’ said Danny. He loved to have the scoop and nearly always did.
‘Sixty? Fifteen minutes? That can’t be true.’ Sam didn’t want it to be true but he couldn’t argue. In all these years, he’d never attended a try-out involving his older brothers. Suddenly, he wondered why.
‘What can you show in fifteen minutes? That’s hardly fair.’ Danny wouldn’t let it go.
‘We’ll get more than fifteen minutes. We have to.’ As he spoke, Sam was doing some long division in his head. Fifteen out of sixty. That meant three out of every four kids wouldn’t make the cut.
‘At least you’ll have an advantage,’ said Danny interrupting his mental arithmetic.
‘What advantage?’
‘Well they’ll know you. Your family. Your brothers are famous in this town.’
The Healy Brothers were kind of famous in the town. They were the soccer family. Same as others were the baseball, football or the church families. Soccer was what they did. Billy was the most talked-about 17 year old soccer phenom on Long Island. Charlie was two years younger but already gaining a similar reputation. And, as for 13 year old Abe, he’d been invited to train with the New York Red Bulls the week after his 11th birthday. That’s how good he was.
‘I’m sure my name won’t matter.’ Sam didn’t like the idea that there might be favourites. ‘Lots of fourth-graders have older brothers who’ve played for the club.’
‘Yeah, they’ve played. But your brothers have played and won everything. Every year. My Dad says they are the club.’
Sam had never really thought about it like that before. All those victories. All those trophies in the bedroom windows. The photographs of winning teams on both walls of the basement stairs. He presumed all houses were like that.
‘And you’ve actually practiced with travel teams too.’ Danny still talking about Sam’s advantage.
‘I suppose I have.’ Many times when his older brothers’ teams needed an extra body for a scrimmage, coaches had asked him to step in. Then warned the players not to hurt him.
‘Some of the coaches may even know your name but I’ll just be a number on the shirt.’
Sam didn’t know what to say to that. But he didn’t need to say anything because their conversation was rudely interrupted.
‘
What are you girls talking about?’ There was a laugh at the end of the question. Peter Luciano loved to laugh at his own jokes. And anything to do with boys that were smaller than him. Which, given that he was already a monster, meant everybody.
Sam and Danny said nothing. They knew better than to hand ammunition to their enemy. But, Peter had got one of the flyers too.
‘I bet it’s this.’ He waved the sheet of paper in the air. ‘Soccer. A game for boys who aren’t tough enough to play football or lacrosse.’ An old line. They’d heard it before. Like a thousand times.
‘Don’t you have any new material?’ asked Sam.
‘Don’t you have the guts to play a real game? It says here that try-outs are for boys and girls.’
‘The girls play on different teams.’ Sam felt stupid that he even responded.
‘How was I to know? I thought all soccer players had ponytails and pink cleats.’ More laughing at his own attempted joke.
Sam could feel the frustration burning inside. Luckily, Mrs. Alberti came towards the table. ‘I hope you boys are packed up and ready to go. Buses in two minutes.’
‘Yes miss.’ All three chorused at once. That was the end of the encounter. Until two minutes later a paper airplane version of the flyer flew right between Sam and Danny. One side of the sheet had been completely colored in with pink marker. They didn’t need to turn around to know where it came from.