aid. Thats the most disappointing thing - there were some crucial game we should have won, but w from LAM's blog
As President Obama might say, my daughter is a badass. Ronnie Harrison Jersey . I dont say that just because shes my daughter. As the president did when he met the members of the U.S. womens national soccer team after they won the World Cup last year, I offer that description up in the broadest of terms.That same term applies to many of my daughters teammates through years of club soccer that have seen us travel around the South and across the country. Ive seen them get knocked down and bounce right back up. Ive seen them limp around the field, trying to shake off a twisted ankle to stay in the game. Ive seen them suffer difficult losses and play in pouring rain and frigid cold.Im glad my daughter, Lucy, is part of it. And Im glad I have been there to see it.I am a soccer dad, twice over. My son is in college now, but he also played travel soccer for years. I loved watching him play and seeing his confidence grow as he kept moving up to better teams through the years. But soccer wasnt as critical to my relationship with my son as it has been with my daughter.We have some differences, she and I. My daughter has a clear sense of fashion, while I shop the clearance rack at Kohls. She uses her phone for endless snaps and selfies, while I use mine to check sports scores and play Words with Friends. And there are certain areas where conversations between fathers and daughters are tricky at best. Soccer, though, has provided us with a shared experience since she first enjoyed orange slices and juice boxes at halftime and ran through tunnels created by the parents outstretched arms after games.I didnt play the game growing up, but Ive come to appreciate it and all that its meant to my kids. Unlike the sports I grew up with, there are no timeouts in soccer. Players have to make hundreds of decisions during a game -- without a coach telling them what to do -- about when and where to pass, when to attack and when to pull back and defend. To have any chance at success, they have to work with and rely on their teammates. Its a game that values speed, technical ability, teamwork, intelligence, stamina, athleticism and the willingness to be physical. (Lucy points with pride to the various bruises and scrapes on her legs, treasuring each one as a memento from various high school and club games.)But where the game has helped me connect with my daughter is off the field, on the drives to and from practice or the road trips to games and tournaments. Weve driven through a West Virginia snowstorm to get to an indoor soccer tournament in Detroit in February, flown to Seattle to play against some of the best teams in the country and spent the holidays in Orlando more times than I care to count. Ive rinsed out stinky jerseys and soccer socks in hotel sinks and made late-night runs to get Gatorade. Im always up for arranging some sort of side trip, having nothing to do with soccer, to check out something interesting in the area.All that travel translates into great family time -- time to play card games, talk about how schools going or watch HGTV together in the hotel room. Occasionally the talk is about soccer.One topic of frequent discussion is the U.S. womens national team. We rarely miss a chance to watch them play, even if its just a friendly on TV. The women on that team are rock stars to my daughter and her teammates, and I will never forget the thrill it was for Lucy when she got a photo with Megan Rapinoe, her favorite player, when the team played in North Carolina a couple of years ago. So while Im curious to see how Michael Phelps will do in the pool and whether anyone can beat Usain Bolt in the 100 meters, my daughter and I will be most interested in the U.S. womens soccer team as they go after their fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal in Rio later this summer.I wondered whether the dads of the women on the U.S. national team felt the same as I did about soccer helping their relationship with their daughters. I managed to touch base with Ken Krieger, father of defender Ali Krieger, and Vincent Dunn, father of midfielder and forward Crystal Dunn. Not surprisingly, they also had tales of weekends spent traveling to tournaments and car rides home after games or practices spent listening as their daughters recounted their experience.Both fathers were most interested in talking about who their daughters have become off the field. The thing Im most proud of has absolutely nothing to do with soccer, said Vincent Dunn, a finance attorney in New York. Crystal is just a genuinely good person. She cares about other people and is a fun person.Krieger, a former player who has built a long and successful career as a youth soccer and basketball coach in and around Washington, D.C., recounted an experience years ago when his daughter got a chance to see Mia Hamm play. What she remembered from that day was watching Hamm sign autographs for what seemed like hours afterward. She told her father that she would do the same thing one day if she ever got the chance. Im usually in the bleachers for an hour after her games, Ken Krieger told me, waiting for her to finish signing autographs.My wife and I often talked as our kids moved up (and occasionally down) the ranks of club soccer about how we werent interested in raising soccer players. We wanted to raise kids who would go on to become good adults. Soccer has been one way to do that, imparting lessons in the value of determination, hard work and sportsmanship.Theyve learned how to handle defeat as well as victory. Theyve learned that the calls dont always go your way and that theres nothing to be gained by complaining about it. Theyve learned that while sometimes you have to figure things out for yourself, there are other times when you can rely on your teammates or, more importantly, be there for your teammates. Those are lessons that will serve them well long after their playing days are over.I will also treasure the bonds soccer has helped me build with Lucy. There are plenty of things she would rather talk with her mother about, and Im OK with that. But we have our own connection, and I will never complain about the money and time our family has spent on soccer.Bill Krueger is an editor at the alumni magazine at N.C. State University, where U.S. head coach Jill Ellis started her coaching career as a graduate assistant for the Wolfpack womens soccer team. Logan Cooke Jersey . Robredo, ranked No. 16, bounced back from an upset loss to Leonardo Mayer in the second round of the Royal Guard Open in Chile last week to down Carreno Busta in 1 hour, 25 minutes. On a day filled mostly with qualifying matches, fifth-seeded Marcel Granollers of Spain also entered the second with a 7-5, 3-6, 6-2 win over Aljaz Bedene of Slovenia, while Guido Pella of Argentina defeated Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain 7-6 (6), 6-4 to advance. A.J. Bouye Jersey .B. - Sebastien Auger made 44 saves as the Saint John Sea Dogs edged the visiting Acadie-Bathurst Titan 2-1 on Saturday in Quebec Major Junior Hockey League action. http://www.thejaguarsfansshop.com/Jaguars-Will-Richardson-Draft-Jersey/ . -- Charline Labonte couldnt have asked for a better homecoming. Surrey 212 for 4 (Roy 120, Finch 79) beat Kent 175 for 7 (Northeast 59) by 37 runsScorecardTo be at The Oval on Friday night, with a sell-out of close to 25,000 enraptured by the brilliant brutality of Jason Roy, it seemed incongruous to consider that Englands domestic T20 is a tournament deemed to be in need of a rapid overhaul.No county does T20 better than Surrey. This typically boisterous crowd took Surreys total attendance for their seven home T20s to over 140,000, and the revenue these games have raised to over £4 million: both figures are records. On this night the crowds only gripe was the rain at Chelmsford, which eliminated Surrey, but, as they belted out renditions of Will Griggs on Fire in between the Icelandic football clap, no one seemed remotely perturbed.Whatever the future of English domestic T20, it will be all the better if it involves plenty more innings like this from Roy. While the Rhythm of the Night blared out, Roys thunderous hitting was again the rhythm of the night at The Oval.In this mood, Roy has the swagger of a villain in a Western, brazenly bestriding his turf, ready to shoot down anyone with the effrontery to challenge him. Or so it seemed as he greeted James Tredwells offspin with a huge straight six then, as if insulted by how easy it had all been, promptly launched the bowler over wide long-on, the longest boundary.When Roy thrashed a full toss down the ground to bring up his fourth T20 century, off 51 balls, he removed his helmet, giving off the air of a gladiator appreciating the crowds acclaim.For all its destruction, this was an innings defined by far more than raw power. There was impudent improvisation too - reverse-scooping Darren Stevens over short third man for four, or waltzing across his stumps to lift the ball over the keeper. There was also ample evidence of Roys maturity as a battsman, the brain to go with his brawn. Malik Jackson Jersey. He scored off all but nine of the 62 deliveries he faced, a dot-ball percentage of just 14.5%. To put that into context, 40% of deliveries in the World T20 were dots.With Roy in this mood Aaron Finch, the worlds second-ranked T20I batsman, was relegated to the status of B-list support act; on most nights the violence underpinning Finchs 79 would have been befitting something rather more. If the two did not quite break the records they threatened to - they fell five runs short of the English record partnership for any wicket and 14 short of the all-time record opening stand in T20 cricket - their 187 did break Kent.When Gareth Batty fired a delivery down the leg side after seeing Sam Billings giving him the charge, and Roy claimed Stevens, diving at full length after running in from the extra cover boundary, soon after, Surreys cruise to victory was assured.Yet it had all come too late to secure qualification for the quarter-finals. For the second consecutive season Surreys financial clout had failed to yield progress beyond the group stages.Weve put on an absolute spectacle tonight and showed what were capable of, a downcast Roy said. Thats the most disappointing thing - there were some crucial game we should have won, but we didnt show that grit and determination.At a time when the teams who take part in Englands elite T20 competition face being determined by ground size rather than on-field performance, some would see Surreys failure as a reminder of the need to keep the principle of meritocracy at the heart of the domestic English game.The debate will rumble on, long after the last remnants of spilled beer have been cleaned from The Ovals stands. 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