Early start today, there's a 10 o'clock game and the consensus is to begin at 7:30 to get the full dose. Beautiful clear day with a light breeze, 50 degrees. Two guests today, Jake Miller is back from college, and a guy named Jeff who said Adam invited him.
Steve in the blue net, Jimmy, Kevin, Shamu and finally me in the white net. It was a big day for the white team, even with ten white vs 12 blue, it was all white:
Jay for white 1-0
Keebs for white 2-0 on a beautiful cross from Jay
Super Mario for white 3-0
Shamu for white 4-0
Mario for white 5-0
Guest Jeff for white 6-0
Ted finally found a way to score for blue 6-1
Jelly for blue 6-2
Super Mario 7-2, and we have to pause here to make a special mention of this goal. It may have been a corner kick or a similar situation, with lots of guys in front of the net and a long cross in from the right corner. SM goes all horizontal and blasts the ball out of the air into the back of the net. Damn.
Super again 8-2
Joe Bagels for blue 8-3
Joe again 8-4
Keebs 9-4
Mark Miller! for blue 9-5, it wasn't an own-goal, but just as ugly
Mario 10-5 to end the game, due to exhaustion.
Player of the Week
Rocco
Rocco has been instrumental in getting us out of the mud and onto the magic carpet. He is the unofficial president and treasure of our unofficial group, he collects the money and orders the shirts. He even enforces the rules when things get too crowded. And on behalf of the entire team, I say "Thanks". Rocco has his own accounting practice in Waldwick.
I was born in 1961 in Englewood and lived in Cliffside Park. I was the first American born in my family; my only sister was born in Italy and was brought to America when she was only four months old. As I grew older I was always the stubborn one in my family. My parents being from Italy were very strict and were always against me hanging out with my friends. Both my parents worked and I remember as soon as I came home every day from school I would sneak out to go play with my friends and had to be home before my father came home from work or he would get pissed off. I started playing soccer in our Rec program when I was about 10 years old. I remember that our team names where the names of countries, and I was on the USA team and everyone on my team spoke Italian. It was like that Will Farrell movie when he was always drinking espresso on the sidelines as the coach and the two boys had just come over from Italy and they were just dominating. We had the same thing, a bunch of my friends had just come over from Italy and at the age of 11 they were great soccer players, we never lost. We were the champs for three consecutive years from 1972-1974. I played through my sophomore year in High School and then for some stupid reason I thought it was more important that I went to work rather than play soccer.
I got married in 1985 to my beautiful wife of now 25 years Ellen. We lived in Bergenfield for three years, Mahwah for the next three and then moved to Waldwick in 1992. We had our first son TJ in 1990 and when he was in first grade he started playing soccer and my coaching days began. I got very involved in town as a soccer, baseball and basket ball coach. With three sons, at one point I was coaching five soccer teams between Rec and club, games and practices seven days a week. I truly enjoy coaching and truly enjoy the game of soccer. What I love the most about living in a small town like Waldwick, is that I started coaching these kids as Kindergartners and am still able to coach them through High School, and it is a great feeling to watch them all grow up as young men and develop their skills, their friendships and the bond that we have as player and Coach. Whether they are calling me Coach or Mr. P or just yo Rock, it has been a lot of fun. I have been president of the Waldwick Soccer Association for over eight years, and treasurer of the Club.
I was so glad I found out about the group that played down in Lions Park. It wasn’t too long before I started playing with this group that I had my “Bee Sting” episode and caused this commotion with ambulances and EMT’s, and some people say because of that we got kicked off of Lions Park, but we now found a new home here on the Turf. I truly look forward to playing every Sunday morning and we truly have a great group of people and I hope I can continue to do this until a ripe old age, but as I turn 50 this year, I see the reflexes are slowing down as well as the speed of play. But as long as we have fun together it brings a smile and a good feeling at the end of each week.
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