Leif Playing Soccer as a High School Freshman

I wonder how many new photos of Leif I will find as the years go by. This past week, I opened a trunk filled with old home movies on reels and Leif's high school yearbooks were in it as well. I've looked through the ones from Puerto Rico, and Northwood Junior High, but somehow hadn't really looked at Highland Park High School and Manhattan High School.

Leif wasn't in a lot of activities and didn't have a lot of photos in the yearbooks. He was involved with music (playing and constructing electric guitars) out of school, but he always played soccer, from the time he was just a little tyke until he was a junior in high school, and the only reason he stopped then was because when we moved to Puerto Rico and he went out for the team, initially he couldn't run in the high heat and dense humidity and sprained his ankle. It was a shame. He missed playing, and he was really good.

So, finding this photo of him as a high school freshman in the 1990 Highland Park High School yearbook was a treat. It shows him jumping up to head butt a soccer ball during one of their  games. I wish it were a video, because it's hard to imagine him jumping so high in such a straight posture, but there he is.

I don't know exactly when the picture was taken, only that it was his freshman year in the 1990 yearbook. The ball almost looks like a moon in the sky.

Leif's Antilles High School Yearbook 1991

 We moved to Puerto Rico in the summer of 1990. It was a rough adjustment for Leif in some ways. Nearly all of the students at AHS were Puerto Rican and spoke Spanish, which Leif never learned. The classes were taught in English, and all of the students spoke English, but for many it was their second language.

Leif was the new gringo, and a tall one that stood out. He got picked on and attacked. He did make it through the initial hazing and made good friends there, but the start that summer and early fall were hard.

He went out for soccer and finally had to quit trying to stay on the team. He wasn't used to the incredible heat and humidity after living in Chicago for four years, and wasn't immediately able to keep up with all the local kids running in the heat. Then he sprained his ankle. Between that and the coach having no understanding of his difficulties with the heat, he gave up. It was a shame, because he was quite a good soccer player, and he never played again.

Instead, he invested himself in music and drama, not through classes, but through playing his electric guitar, building one himself, and working on the school musical that year, "Guys and Dolls."

Sadly, this photo is the ONLY photo of Leif in this yearbook. There are no photos of him in any activities, and no mention of them. It's hard to imagine that.

I am still wondering where his second (junior year) Antilles yearbook might be, and whether he even got a yearbook his senior year when he attended and graduated from Manhattan High School in Manhattan, Kansas.

Leif and Football

During this fall season of football madness I'm reminded how little interest either of my sons had in the game. Even their dad didn't show much interest in it until we moved back to Manhattan, Kansas in 1992 and the Wildcats had a winning team. It seems that we always had a football, and periodically their dad would suggest that they go throw it around to each other, but that was about the extent of football at our house. We didn't watch games much, either.

Thus this is kind of a rare photo of Leif, with the green Nerf football. There were about three shots taken during that same afternoon, and I can only think of one other picture of him with a football in his hands. This picture was taken in our yard at Am Römer 9 in Sachsen bei Ansbach, Germany. You can tell it was already pretty chilly that October as Leif was wearing a warm jacket. He was four-and-a-half years old.

Even as a high school student and as an adult, Leif showed practically zero interest in football, and although he knew who some of the well-known players were, he couldn't really discuss the games, players or the season with any real background or enthusiasm.

I've often wondered why this was so. He was enthusiastic about soccer, but never showed any interest in playing football, basketball (despite his height), or baseball, or any other games involving a ball. Aside from soccer, about the only sports he participated in were discus and javelin throwing in junior high school, swimming (primarily because we taught him and took him to the pools and beaches). The two giant exceptions to this were judo, in which he earned his first degree black belt at the age of fourteen, and the sport of fighting in the SCA.

As an adult, it would have been good for him to have some physical sport outlet to help keep him in shape and raise his endorphins, but he preferred riding a motorcycle and playing computer and online video games. He did have a set of weights but I have no idea whether he used them.

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Peter W. tells me that Leif used to play touch football in the yard across the street from us with some of the neighborhood kids when he was in junior high, but I have no memory of this whatsoever. I know he never went to games or talked about it. I know he played volleyball at times, but that and soccer are the only ball games I remember him playing.

Leif at the Soccer Award Banquet - Highland Park, Illinois - November 1989 - Age 14

Leif played fullback on the freshman soccer team at Highland Park High School in Highland Park, Illinois. He could boot the ball all the way down the field. This photo was taken at the soccer awards banquet and he was being given a certificate and award. You can see how tall he was as he towers over the man giving him the award and those around him.

In those days he loved to wear ties and had a small wardrobe of them. I think the narrow ties looked really good on him.

It's hard to believe that this was 20 years ago this very month. How does 20 years go by so fast?

Leif - Honolulu, Hawaii - April 1984 - Age 9

These photos were taken after Leif came home from a soccer game in April 1984 when he was nine years old. Unfortunately, I made no notes on the back of them, but he looks really contented, so I think they must have won. Like most kids he loved to win and took losing hard. He's flopped on our living room rug here, looking relaxed and then acting silly.

It's hard for me to realize that I now have a grandson who will soon be nine, and although I never thought that Marcus looked like his Uncle Leif, I do see some resemblance in these two photos.

I wonder, if I could ask Leif now, what he would say the happiest years of his childhood were. I suspect that they were the three years in Hawaii. Those were good years for all of us, although I wore myself out working on my master's degree at the University of Hawaii, determined to finish it before we were moved again.

How I wish I could go back, just for a few days, with my boys and Peter W., have a Sunday breakfast on the lanai, go to Bellows Beach, head down to Waikiki for a movie and video games at one of the game parlors, dinner at It's Greek to Me  . . . those are fond memories. We were so fortunate to be able to do those things together!

Leif Playing Soccer - Japan & Hawaii - Ages 6-11

Leif started playing soccer at Camp Zama in Japan when he was only five or six years old. He was really good at it, especially playing goalie or fullback. Even that young it was amazing how far he could boot the ball, and unlike some kids, he wasn't scared when other kids rushed at him in the goalie box.

He played every year through his freshman year of high school. What I can't believe is that with all the photos we have I can't find any from the four years he played in the Chicago area, first with leagues and then on the freshman team at HighLand Park High School. I looked and looked. I even remember having the camera with me at games, and in Highland Park, many of those games were played in cold, damp or soaking wet nasty weather. I remember one game where the field had a couple of inches of icy water on it, with actual ice floating in it, and those kids still played!

He got an award for his play on the freshman team at Highland Park High School in Illinois. I remember at one game I was awed when he kicked a ball literally down the entire field over the heads of both teams, to one of his forwards way up there by the opposing team's goal. This teammate scored.

These photos span a five year period. The bottom one shows Leif in the black goalie shirt at Camp Zama, Japan in March 1981, when he was six years old. Above that are two taken in the fall of 1982 when he was seven-and-a-half, and the top two are from February 1986 in Honolulu, Hawaii when he was eleven years old.

Leif loved playing soccer and probably would have played on his high school varsity team and perhaps in college if we hadn't moved to Puerto Rico. We got there in August and the Antilles High School team was already practicing for the fall season. Leif went to try out for the team but the shock of coming from a chilly northern climate to weather that was 96 degrees and about 98% humidity. The coach had them running for miles without any chances to cool down or drink anything and Leif was an danger of heat exhaustion. He was coming home about to drop and I was worried about him. The coach refused to make any allowances for his change in climate so that he could adjust, or let the boys stop for a drink. The final blow came when Leif's soccer shoe sole came partially off during a run and he twisted his ankle so that he couldn't run for awhile. He was so discouraged and so upset with the coach that he quit the team. I was so sorry to see that happen, losing a sport he had enjoyed from 1980 to 1990, for ten years. I know he missed it. He went to the games and I could see that he longed to be on the field with his friends, especially Lenny.

Leif's 17th Christmas 1991 - Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico - Almost 17 years old

We lived at Fort Sheridan for four years. In that time, Leif shot up like Jack's beanstalk, becoming six feet tall when he was only thirteen. He was extremely slender. It was a time of his best academic work at Northwood Junior High School and Highland Park High School, his best soccer playing, at HPHS, and his best science achievements. I've already written about some of that, including his science fair projects that took him to the state science fair.

He also had some adjustment problems, developed terrible acne, and got in some fights. Luckily, he got through all of that. It was also where he began developing a much deeper interest in computers and music, including taking electric guitar lessons. The last year in Illinois, he started letting his hair grow long.

The summer of 1990, we moved from Fort Sheridan to Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico, visiting in Charlottesville VA and the DC area on the way, because Peter W. had to take the Staff Judge Advocate Course at the JAG School before becoming the Staff Judge Advocate for the Fort Buchanan command. We also got to visit Disney World on our way south, shipping our car (the trusty Nissan Maxima, which was already seven years old by then) from Port Canaveral, Florida.

Puerto Rican Christmases were another new experience of the holidays. Again, we were in tropical weather and now we not only had the North American snowy carols but local Puerto Rican Christmas carols that were in a Latin beat and accompanied by instruments that were unfamiliar and fascinating as well as other new customs. But we still had Christmas trees and cookies, those German custom that seem to have spread around the world.

Initially, Leif had some disappointments and difficulties in Puerto Rico. He got there just in time to try out for the soccer team, but the coach had the boys running for miles in the extreme heat and humidity (96 degrees, 99 percent humidity), which was oppressive. They weren't allowed to stop to get drinks, and Leif wasn't allowed to work his way up to the long runs. He wasn't used to that climate at all, and he had never run miles like that with his previous teams. (He had gotten an award for his performance on the freshman team at HPHS.) He would come home from practices totally worn out and feeling faint. I was concerned that he would have heat stroke.

Then he injured his ankle when the sole came off his soccer shoe while running, and he couldn't run. The coach was unsympathetic, and Leif ended up quitting. I felt very badly about that, because Leif was an outstanding fullback and could literally boot the ball the full length of the field. He enjoyed soccer and had played since he was only five years old, so to have to quit at the age of 15 was sad and humiliating. He tried to insist it didn't matter, but I know it wasn't true. He went to the games, and you could see he wanted to be on the field.

However, Leif found other ways to use his talents in Puerto Rico, once he got past the "new gringo" initiations. He made good friends at Antilles High School, participated in musicals, took guitar lessons, designed and built his own electric guitar, had parties, became a SCUBA diver, learned to sail, and many other things.

This photo was taken our second, and last, Christmas in Puerto Rico. You can see how tall Leif had become. At 6'1" he towered over his dad. By this time, Leif wasn't interested in surprise gifts for Christmas. He usually had something specific he wanted, and since we tried to get it for him (and if it was expensive, combine it with the money we would spend for his birthday in January), he usually knew ahead of time what his main gift would be. I think this was the Christmas he got his bass guitar. I always tried to get something less expensive so he'd have something to open he didn't already know about.

Peter A. never lived with us in Puerto Rico, since he left home to attend the Air Force Academy in the summer of 1987, but he did get to come to Puerto Rico a couple of times to visit, and Christmas was one of them. It was good to have our family of four together, if only briefly.