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 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.
CHAPTER 20
The fastest five minutes of Sam Healy’s life began badly. He went to trap a bouncing ball but it ricocheted off his knee and hit
his hand. A free kick to the South Bay Stormbreakers. A free kick that put Rocky Road under more pressure as the ball sailed deep into their half of the field.
‘That’s it, the ball will never come back up here, now,’ said Sam, out loud. He was talking to himself. That’s how frustrated he’d become.
‘Are you talking to me?’ asked the South Bay defender, looking down from six inches above the top of Sam’s head.
Sam didn’t bother answering. He was too busy watching the play, wishing the action would come back up the field. Standing on the halfway line, he thought about moving back to help out, moving back to try to win the ball.
‘Stay up, Sam, you must stay up,’ shouted Coach Silverman. It was like he’d been reading his mind.
Sam took a step backwards, just to show he was obeying the instruction. Then he heard some more voices shouting at him. Strangely familiar voices.
“Come on Sam! Give ‘em hell!’
Abe, Billy and Charlie were on the sidelines but behaving rather strangely. They were cheering not jeering. His three brothers were actually watching the game too, not messing around on the other field like they usually did. Abe even gave him a fist pump of encouragement.
‘Two minutes remaining,’ shouted the ref as Peter Bryson, the Rocky Road goalie, prepared to kick the ball out. He caught it so perfectly it reached the halfway line. After ping-ponging off a few heads, it fell right into Sam’s path. So quickly he didn’t even have time to think.
He just swiveled as it dropped and sent a diagonal, right-foot volley out to the left wing where Peter Di Paulo was sprinting towards it. Truth be told, he didn’t even see Peter’s run. He just wanted to kick the ball forward in the right direction.
As Peter started gunning towards the corner flag with the ball at his feet, Sam began sprinting into the box. Of course, he was trailing behind the enormous South Bay defenders, both of whom appeared to him to have giant legs.
‘Go near post, Sam, near post.’ It was his brother Billy, shouting so loud Sam could clearly hear his voice even as all the parents were shrieking with excitement. ‘Near post.’
It seemed like a good idea, especially when all the defenders around him were running towards the center of the box. Sam reached the edge of the six-yard box just as Peter Di Paulo’s cross came over. He met it perfectly with his right foot. This was it. The dream. The winning goal in the last minute.
Except it wasn’t. The crowd aaaahhed loudly as the goalie got down at his near post and palmed it out for a corner. Sam couldn’t believe it. He was so frustrated he put his head in his hands the way pros do on television.
‘Stay right there Sam, stay right there.’ This time, it was his brother Abe doing the shouting. It was so weird hearing him being nice that Sam was almost distracted.
Peter Di Paulo took the corner and it flew over Sam’s head on the way to the penalty spot. There, Johnny Del Rio powered a header towards goal. It beat the keeper but lashed off the underside of the crossbar. Suddenly, it seemed like everything was happening in slow motion.
The ball came down off the bar, bounced on the goal line before being hooked up in the air by a scrambling South Bay defender. Sam started to move towards it but there were too many bodies in his way. All the bigger players were jostling under the dropping ball.
So he stepped back from the scrum. What else could he do? He watched the others compete but the only person to touch the ball was the goalie. He swatted at it with his right hand and suddenly, unbelievably, it came flying towards Sam.
There was no time to think. No time to move. He did what came most naturally.
The ball was too high to volley. So he fell to his knees, stuck his neck out and headed it. It wasn’t the best header in the world. It definitely wasn’t perfect but it had just enough pace. It bounced once before slipping past the outstretched hand of the goalie and just inside the post.
‘Goal!!!!’ shouted Sam as if he couldn’t quite believe it. ‘Goal!!!’ He had his hands raised and he looked like a boy on his knees praying to the soccer Gods.
Then he disappeared beneath a pile of teammates. When they came up for air and straggled back to the halfway line for the kick-off there was barely enough time for South Bay to touch the ball before the ref blew.
Phreep!! Phreeep!! Phreeepp!!!!
Game over. Sam’s goal had won the game and the championship for Rocky Road.
As he lined up with his teammates to shake hands with South Bay (‘Win with class, lose with class,’ shouted Coach Silverman just like every other week), Sam could see his brothers walking onto the field.
They were smiling at him. And then they were running at him. And, in an instant, Billy and Charlie had hoisted him on their shoulders and were carrying him aloft.
‘Guys, guys, put me down!’ said Sam suddenly embarrassed.
‘No way,’ said Billy before starting a chant that his brothers echoed.
‘The runt of the litter got the winner. The runt of the litter got the winner.’
After they had stopped embarrassing him and put him back on the ground, Sam rejoined his team as Coach Silverman congratulated each of them. Following way too many high-fives, he saw his father waiting patiently, away from the other parents.
‘What did I tell you about the size of the fight in the dog?’ shouted Mr. Healy as Sam walked towards him, grinning uncontrollably.
‘It’s more important than the size of the dog in the fight!’ shouted Sam.
‘Exactly,’ said his father as they hugged. ‘Exactly.’