Little Karla was starting her second year on the soccer team I coached. I loved the game and got involved coaching at the local association, even though I had no kids of my own. The team had shaped up the previous year into a pretty good side and was very successful, and Karla was well-established as a star striker. This was a particularly significant accomplishment given that she was the only girl on an all-boys team, playing in a boy's league. I broke the rules of convention, and of the club I served in, when I recruited Karla onto my boy's team, but I did it for two reasons; she had the capability, and she was an eleven year old child in need. Her parents were embroiled in a particularly bitter divorce, seemingly unaware or unconcerned about the harm their public displays of hatred and rage were causing their daughter. Then her father essentially disappeared, and her mother expressed her spite for her missing mate by becoming the town drunk, and the town slut. By the time I took Karla under my wing, she was completely withdrawn. Soccer was her salvation, and she poured her spirit into the game. She loved the sport, and it loved her back, giving her the outlet she needed to survive the turmoil that was her life. I could see the lack of focus and commitment that marked the girl's team in her age group simply added another frustration to Karla's list of many, and fought my club leadership for the right to get her the challenge that her abilities, and her needs, required.
Once the club relented, Karla was always the first to practice, and the last to leave, setting the standard for work ethic in a group of boys that included few slackers. Her mother could care less which team Karla played on as long as it didn't disrupt her own pathetic life, and when she became unreliable as transportation, I took the time to pick Karla up and take her home, quite often finding a highly intoxicated and ungrateful mother waiting upon our return.
It was not unusual for a week to go by with hardly a word between Karla and I. She was content in her silence, and I quickly learned not to press. In the course of the first year, Karla made it clear in her own ways that she understood and appreciated my efforts, and ever so slowly, she opened up. The first tiny smiles I got from her were like gold, and I cherished them as I worked for the next one. Then we started to talk, or more accurately Karla did, at times just telling me things at the most unexpected moment, as if the thoughts had to be released before she lost her nerve. Sometimes it was just a sentence or two, sometimes it was more, and I listened patiently, letting her set her own pace. Over time I deduced that her mother was drunk nearly every night and entertaining many different men, sometimes more than one visiting at a time. Her mother apparently made no effort to hide her behavior. While I didn't pry further, I could only imagine what Karla and her baby sister were exposed to in the small three room apartment they lived in. My loathing for her mother gradually turned to hatred, yet I could say nothing, knowing from an early effort that she would respond by taking Karla away. Unable to correct Karla's entire world, I did the best I could with the small part I controlled, offering her simple friendship and the outlet of soccer. As my reward, she started smiling again, at when she was on the pitch. I came to love Karla as if she was my own, and the protective net I cast around her became a personal obsession for me. I wanted to do everything possible to offer her a chance at the joy life should bring to a beautiful girl, now eleven years old.
Karla also rewarded my efforts in another way, one that meant a lot to me on a different level, considering the pride I took in the team I coached. Karla personally ripped apart every opponent we played, as if they somehow were the cause of all her worries. As our leading scorer, she was formidable in front of the goal. Our team traveled quite often, looking for the best competition, and Karla's mom was quick to let her go alone, no doubt eager to have one less child to care for over the weekend. It was never a problem to get one of the other mothers to accept Karla into their hotel room, and whenever we were on the road I looked after her as a father would. The time in question that caused my flashback was different, however. Quite different indeed. It was late in the fall, with State Cup looming big in the spring. When the season resumed after the winter break, we were going to make a run, I could feel it. My team had silently risen from the masses and, in my opinion, had the potential to win it all. To be ready, we needed to play the best competition available. So when I heard that the current state champion, plus the team thought to be a top contender, had both signed up for a tournament on the far side of the state, and that one more team was needed to make a bracket, I changed our plans and entered. Many of the parents howled at the sudden schedule change since it required overnight stays on short notice. To alleviate their concerns, I agreed to organize a way to take most of the players without their parents, since they had already made other commitments. Two other parents volunteered to help, and we split the team, each of them bunking four kids in their room, and me taking seven. My plan was simple: with seven players plus myself, we would rent two adjoining rooms and literally camp out.
Karla was one of the seven, and once we arrived the complications this created were suddenly apparent. Karla had never stayed with me on a trip, and I failed to consider that a budding young girl, even a tomboyish athlete like Karla, needed some degree of space between her and a pack of six rowdy boys. The solution was simple. The boys would use the two beds in one room, plus the sleeping bags they brought, and all stay together. They didn't want to be separated anyway. This left the other room with its two beds and bath for Karla and me.
After a team dinner, we all retired to the boy's room to watch a movie and relax. We had a mid-morning game against the reigning state champion, so with the movie over it was lights out at 10:00 and everyone was required to go to bed. As Karla and I made our preparations for bed, I closed the door between the two rooms to give Karla as much privacy as possible, threatening the boys that I better not hear a sound. Even though I spent plenty of time around girls her age on the soccer fields, I did not have a daughter and felt awkward to be sharing a room with a young girl. As Karla changed in the bathroom and brushed her teeth, I set the clock and read a book, making every effort to become invisible and give Karla all the space she may need. But even with my carefully measured efforts at nonchalance, I couldn't help but notice how cute she looked in the running shorts and T-shirt Karla had chosen for sleeping. She settled in and we said our goodnights, and then cut the lights. Only after it was dark did I remove my shirt, since I can't stand to sleep in one. However, I left my nylon shorts on, which only seemed appropriate…