Outside Soccer (#46)

I recently played in a soccer game against a team from outside of the camp. The team was from the Taft Jr. college, and they traveled to our camp to play a game against several of the inmates. This is similar to the movie “The Longest Yard” where the inmates play the guards in football. In the case of the soccer game, the outside team did not have any guards or any staff members that I know of. However, in some other outside games, the guards have played against the inmates on the outside team. The soccer game was the 4th such outside game played at the camp in the past 14 months I’ve been here. The three previous games were basketball, softball, and a second basketball game.

These outside (outside in this context means “not in prison, as “inside” means incarcerated among the inmates) games are very popular events. Generally, an outside team playing a compound team will draw at least half of the inmates as spectators. Part of this is just plain boredom, and the games are something a bit out of the ordinary. But, part of it is also a sense of pride in the inmates. To compete and do well against and outside team gives the inmates, in my opinion, a sense of pride and accomplishment, and acceptance into regular society. I think it makes the inmates feel human a bit, as the camp, and much more so in higher security levels, tend to make one feel inhuman. The game speaks for the inmates saying, “we can do what you do. We aren’t different from you.” That feeling, although not frequently expressed verbally by individual inmates, is expressed collectively when the compound performs well against the outside team.

For me personally, this soccer game ranked in the top 10 games in attendance in which I have played. There were probably 250 people watching this game, about half of the camp. Ironically, this game ranked in the bottom 10 of any soccer game I’ve played as far as importance in my life. It was a bit strange to have so many people care about a soccer game that, to me, had little to no significance in my life. That does not mean I didn’t care about the game. I always want to play well and do my best, but the outcome meant nothing. I wouldn’t get a trophy or a scholarship offer or paid for playing. It was equivalent to an intramural game in college in terms of importance in my life.

If you had asked me 2 months before the game, I would have told you I had no interest in being on the team at all. I was in the middle of the camp soccer league and genuinely hating it. I didn’t want to play soccer at the camp anymore with the people there. I was constantly criticized for my play and attitude. I had nothing to prove, and was playing injured almost every game. I’m a white guy with a long soccer resume playing in a predominantly Hispanic sport in prison. I was going to decline an invitation to play, but when the best player asked me personally to play, I decided to do it. I thought that my best approach would be to keep my mouth shut and do whatever was asked of me. That’s hard for me to do. Over the next month an a half of training, I did my best to encourage others and not get frustrated. Unfortunately, I couldn’t maintain that self control all of the time.

My frustration surfaced during the game. I did not realize that we would be playing 20 year-olds. These guys could run and run. The average age of our team was probably 30 or so, and the starters’ age was higher than that. It became evident after 30 minutes that we weren’t going to be able to keep pace. I cam down with a cold a day or two before the game and got hit hard with the cold on the day of the game. What stamina I had seemed to disappear. Being constantly exhausted makes one’s play deteriorate. That’s when I got frustrated. I was mostly frustrated with myself, but on occasion that frustration spilled over to my teammates, and that’s not good. For any of the guys who played in that game, I apologize.

The game ended in a loss for my inmate team. I think part of the problem was our coach and best player got injured about 20 minutes into the game. We were up 1-0 at that point. I believe we were the more skilled team, but the loss of our coach got us out of rhythm. The other team had some good players, but I think their biggest strength was their stamina. We ended up losing 5-2. It was difficult to keep up with the constant running.

I enjoyed the experience much more than I thought going into it. I enjoyed playing with the team and for the first time in a long time I experienced some good competition. I had given up competitive soccer in return for the much less stressful recreational soccer. This was the first time in about 10 years that I played with a “select team” against another “select team.” That experience was fun and I would be honored to be selected again.

In case you were wondering, the inmate basketball team lost both of its games, but the inmate softball team destroyed the outside team.

Scott’s addition. Jeff sent this blog to me in early June and I misplaced it. It was attached to a letter he sent to me, and I had forgotten that he attached it. He usually sends blogs separately. At any rate, he has since been selected to play against the same outside team in early Sept., and this time the inmates won 7-3. Jeff played about half of the game, to see his team go up 5-1. He was suffering from an abdominal strain and was having difficulty running and moving without pain. But, he wanted to show that he could be encouraging to his teammates. Unfortunately, he is still hurting from the game as his abdomen didn’t get any better.

Jeff