Beyond The Field
Twice a week during my junior year club soccer season I drove to practice with Chris and Dave, both of whom are black. I assumed Motown, the music that consumed my adolescence, would be a shared interest but unlike me, Chris and Dave were modern and hip. They listened to contemporary 80’s bands like Tears for Fears, DePeche Mode and The English Beat. They also dated white and black girls and had friends of all races. I didn’t date and Chris and Dave, though I barely knew them, were the closest thing I had to friends from another race. Dave was also Jewish, making him my first Jewish friend. In my 11 years of Catholic school there wasn’t much opportunity to meet kids from other religions not to mention races. Soccer was my first significant interaction with people from different backgrounds.
Growing up in Wauwatosa, a snow-white suburb of Milwaukee, I had no black friends, teachers, coaches or neighbors. In fact, nearly everyone was of Irish or German descent. My family was weird, because my mom isn’t Catholic, and we had an Irish last name but a paltry two kids – everyone else seemed to have a minimum of five. Wauwatosa was the segregated byproduct of its time – rampant with daily doses of covert and overt racism juxtaposed with quick classroom lessons on Civil Rights and maybe the sin of the Slave Trade. Like many childhood experiences messages were mixed and confusing.
When we were no older than eight years old, I remember kids yelling “n____r pile” when we played Tackle Kill (a football game where you tackle the person with the ball). Then some parent, I don’t remember who, put an end to it. After that, you may hear it chirped or blurted by some kid trying to be defiant or risqué or maybe a kid who still heard n-word at home. But we learned it was forbidden and most knew it was wrong.
In catholic school, we were taught the clichés – do unto others as you would like them to do to you, but I don’t remember talking about race. It wasn’t “our” topic or “our” issue in our cloistered daily lives.
But racism was always around. On the way to my grade school basketball game, my friend’s’ dad, sitting in the passenger seat, opined about a local high school hoops team. “They’re good,” he said, “But they need a white point guard to keep the monkeys under control.” My dad never said anything, but we never rode with that guy again.
Today his comment seems insane, but it wasn’t in the early 80’s. Common Football orthodoxy in the 70’s and early 80’s presumed blacks weren’t smart enough to play quarterback. I hope some 20-year-old Patrick Mahomes, Russell Wilson, DeShaun Watson, Lamar Jackson or Cam Newton fan reads this and is astounded and laughing at the absurd stupidity of that bygone racist belief. Then I hope they study our recent history.
As an adolescent jock, my professional sports heroes were all black. The best running back in the NFL, without question or debate, was Earl Campbell of the Houston Oilers. A bull in ballet slippers – dancin’ around ya or runnin’ through ya. I worshipped him. Sydney Moncrief was my favorite Milwaukee Buck. When I went to Marquette University basketball games it was Glen ‘Doc’ Rivers running the point and beating Catholic rival Notre Dame with a half-court shot. When I played pick up sports, let’s just say I wasn’t trying to emulate Kent Benson or Lynn Dickey.
The athletic field is the ultimate meritocracy. The color barrier being broken in athletics was a little bit about social justice and a lot about winning. Don’t get me wrong, there were good people fighting for social justice but there were also bigoted pragmatists saying, “He ain’t marrying my daughter but he sure can score touchdowns for us.”
My first consistent interaction with black people was when my dad coached high school soccer. While I was still in grade school, my dad coached the inaugural varsity soccer team at Solomon Juneau High School and allowed my brother and I to participate in practices. His two best players, Ronny and David, were black and I idolized them. On a team of clumsy white soccer novices who weren’t good enough to play football, Ronny and David seemed like soccer’s Harlem Globetrotters, juking their teammates at practice with ease and flair. During water breaks or after practice, they showed me dribbling moves or new ways to strike the ball.
In Drivers Ed class I was the lone white kid in a class of ten. No one talked to anyone. We just waited for our nerdy white teacher to quit talking about “blind spots” and “appropriate car lengths” and put us behind the damn wheel. When I finally did get behind the wheel, I was paired with Monique (a black girl). She was nervous and, it seemed to me, received little help from our white instructor. “Hands at ten and two, look left, right and left again – and pay attention, always pay attention – not too much gas but not too little gas, be careful, tap the brake, not too soft, seriously, you need to concentrate.” She was a jittery wreck by the time he finished his harangue thinly veiled as instruction.
When I drove, on the other hand, he treated me like an old pal cruising the open road. “Just a little more acceleration out of the turn, Rob, and just relax. Good job Rob.”
“Thanks, teach, would you turn up the radio, ‘Hotel California,’ I love this song.”
“Yeah, sweet song! Good call Rob. Makes you feel like stretching out with one hand on the wheel, windows open, summer breeze blowing….”
Okay, I exaggerate but that’s the way it felt.
At first, I didn’t judge the difference in how he interacted with the two of us. Just who he was. For that matter it could have been a male/female thing. Who knew? But then we stopped at a gas station so Monique could use the bathroom. Out of the blue he says, “Black people bitch about everything. I guarantee she’s going to tell her mom I was mean to her.”
“Well, you are mean to her,” I thought but never said. I wish I had, but a combination of wimpiness and socialization kept my mouth shut. I was surprised he said that to me, but at the same time I wasn’t. My boss, at that time, told me to follow black people in the store. The same boss who was mad a black sheriff was moving next to his store. I’d heard the racist bologna before but didn’t spend much time challenging it.
Eventually Monique got so flustered she drove our instructor’s car into a snowbank. I felt bad for her but, selfishly, I was enjoying the newness of the experience. I was a participant behaving like a voyeur. The most I stuck up for her was privately tell Monique, “I wish you’d done more damage to his car.” She looked at me in shock and then I added, “Because he deserves it.” And she kind of smiled.
A black Englishman named Brian was one of Chris, Dave and I’s coaches. In his early 20s, Brian could not only teach and play soccer, he could deliver a universal heart-thumping, soul-gripping, veins-pulsing pre-game speech. “Gentlemen, today you’re not just playing a game for yourself, our team or our club, you’re playing for those who can’t play. There are kids everywhere who’d love to play in a game like the one you are about to play in today. Maybe their team didn’t get this far. Maybe they are injured. Maybe, due to disability, they can only watch from the sideline. Today you’re playing for them. No matter how tough it gets, you are privileged to play this game and it is your obligation and your duty to leave every ounce of yourself on that field.”
I ate up every inspiring word.
Toward the end of the season, we were playing a tournament in Michigan and I needed a ride. Brian was driving Chris and Dave and I asked to join them. The three of them were everything I wasn’t – hip, good looking and black. I couldn’t wait for the trip, the opportunity to nurture my multicultural education by spending seven hours in a car with three black guys – friends and a coach nonetheless. They would open up to me and I’d learn all sorts of insider info on black culture and the black experience, the kinds of things one only learns from people with whom one shares a common bond.
Shortly after the drive began, I told them all how excited I was, how I’d never been a minority for that length of time. Then I added, “This is great. By the end of this trip I’m going to be saying “Where you at” instead of “Where are you” and “aks” instead of “ask.”
Brian responded, “That’s great Harry, but none of us speak that way.” I put on my headphones, listened to Stevie Wonder, and stayed quiet for a few hours.
The older I get the more acutely aware I am of race but I’m no poster child for an activist. I’ve succeeded, failed and ignored battling the ignorance, naivety and nastiness of racism.
Once, I was doing some manual labor with a coach and superior I didn’t like. As we worked he said, “We’re doing this to keep the n____rs out.”
“What?” I responded with disgust.
“You know there are black people and n____rs,” he said. “The black people are the good ones and –“
“Yeah well, that makes no sense to me at all,” I responded. He continued to try and explain himself, while I told him he was stupid and began hating him even more.
I’ve scolded, punished and had long talks with players about racist, insensitive or ignorant comments. I’ve tried to do my part.
However, I’ve heard people I like and respect make racist jokes and comments and kept my mouth shut. Why don’t I engage them? Because I’m afraid. I’m afraid of severing a relationship, afraid of creating tension so instead I stay silent, change the subject or walk away. I don’t do the hard thing. I don’t do the right thing.
I’m lucky soccer’s been a part of my life, but not just because it provided me a career and a lifetime of great experiences. Soccer made me challenge my stereotypes and make an ass of myself on that car ride to Michigan. Soccer allowed me to coach first generation Latino and African immigrants and war refugees. It’s taken me into houses and neighborhoods I, once, only drove through. Soccer forced me see the world through other people’s eyes and know I’ll never quite see it the same way. Soccer made me realize how much we have in common independent of upbringing, culture, ethnicity, race or religion. Everyone wants to be loved, respected and happy and it’s time for me to recognize a few thoughtful speeches doesn’t justify complicit silence.
For those interested I suggest reading and listening to the following:
“What I learned about being Black after a cop pointed a gun at me when I was 12 years old” by Milwaukee native and former UWM soccer player David Marshall jr.,
https://www.businessinsider.com/what-i-learned-about-being-black-after-cop-pointed-gun-at-me-when-i-was-12-2020-7
“Hindsight is 2020, The Year White America Woke Up!” a book by Milwaukee native, former standout soccer player and current professor at Cardinal Stritch University Dr. Corey Thompson
https://www.bing.com/shop?q=Hindsight+is+2020+The+year+white+america+woke+up+by+corey+thompson+amazon&FORM=SHOPTB
“Nice White Parents” a podcast about New York Public Schools by the people who did Serial. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nice-white-parents/id1524080195
