Soccer and Books

What does soccer have to do with books?  Everything.  My son was a sports enthusiast and has played organized sports since the age of five.  He loved soccer, baseball and basketball as a child.  Parents of these kids spend a lot of time at practices and games.  You get to know the other parents very well.  Many long-term friendships are formed on the field or court. 

One of my favorite past-times was  revitalized on the soccer field--reading.  One day a few moms were chatting about books and the conversation revealed we had many "readers" on the field.  We all commiserated how little time we had to read with small children and missed that luxury.  We decided to form a book club.  This would "force" us to start reading again--something we all longed for and missed terribly.

Our book club was formed and to this day we still meet once every four to six weeks (dependent upon how many pages the book of choice is) and have read some incredible books along the way.  It has been twelve years and hundreds of books.  We have added some members and lost some members but the core of original book-clubbers remain.  Vicky, Erin, Leslie, Michelle and myself were the pioneers.

At first I was a bit intimidated.  I had always been a reader but some of these moms were very well-read.  We decided each person would get to choose a book (of any genre) for the group as well as the place to meet and discuss the book.  We'd meet at restaurants, coffee shops or people's homes.  Whether everyone loved or hated the book you chose didn't matter--at least we all were reading!

The photo above is the Jets with Coach Phil and Coach Brian and their star players-Daniel, Jennifer, Colin, Emily, AJ, Grant and Mackenzie.