Just in case you don’t follow soccer, and I’m happy to say that I’ve never played the game nor do I understand how people can stand around and watch 1-o games … well, just in case, the fierce North Park Vikings are the first team in history to beat the Wheaton Crusaders three times in a row at Wheaton. And the Vikings won the Conference. North Park considers whatever it does a success if it beats Wheaton. If you want to see genuine zaniness, watch the front row of a NPU-Wheaton basketball game when the game is played at NPU.
On soccer, here’s two thoughts. First, to make the game more interesting, make a bigger goal. More goals, more fun. Second, permit offsides. Imagine what football would be if you couldn’t throw a pass to a receiver who got beyond the defenders. Football, by the way, is way more exciting than soccer. And let me add a third thing I’d do for soccer to make it more interesting: make a smaller field — I find those long kicks a lot of silliness. If you are in trouble and fear getting scored upon, you shouldn’t be able to kick the ball out of the reach of other players. Cheesy, I say. Tough it out.
Kris and I are now official women’s basketball junkies. I played basketball as a kid and even laced ’em up in college a few times, but the game is getting out of hand. It is too physical, too much shoving, too much jumping and dunking, not enough shooting from the perimeter, too many tall guys and not enough short guys. It discourages the guards among us. Kris and I like basketball that focuses on passing and shooting from passes and ball movement. So, we are now fans of the NCAA Women’s version of the game. The teams to watch for us this year will be Tennessee, with Candace Parker from Naperville, and Notre Dame, with Lindsay Schrader, from Bartlett (my sister-in-law, Pat Arnet, was a coach for her team).