By Cory Armstrong-Hoss / Herald Forum

(Author’s Note: I wrote the first version of this, titled “Home Town Heroes,” 25 years ago as a sophomore in Professor Hashimoto’s creative writing classes at Whitman College. I’ve changed the names of my teammates.)

Mark Hogenhout of Olympia did not play in their first game against us.

He was in France, one of 18 Americans under 18-years-old picked to play on the national youth soccer team. The Shelton High School Highclimbers beat Olympia High’s Bears that game, 2 to 1. Some thought the game report filed by The Olympian’s sports writer should’ve featured an asterisk, denoting the absence of the best player in the Black Hills League.

Six weeks will pass until we play Olympia again. Hogenhout will be home by then. Conventional wisdom holds that he’ll help his team crush us, but Chris LeGaull doesn’t think so. On our way to Aberdeen the next week, our varsity soccer team crowds in the back of a big yellow school bus. Leaning toward the aisle sit the defenders: lanky Justin Watters, Tyler Schrader, little Abe Gordon, smack-talking LeGaull, and John Heethe, looking like his mom cuts his hair.

Goalie Matt Fourtier, Zach Zhilione, Josh Twin, Aaron Metzer and I look out dusty windows at small, gas-up truck stops like Taylor Towne and outlet shopping cities like Centralia, where square, flaky white buildings advertise Cutlery, Nike Outlet and Men’s Wearhouse.

“I heard Hogenhout’s an idiot,” LeGaull says as another McDonald’s glides by us. “He got like 900 on his SATs.”

More games take us away: to Grays Harbor, Chehalis, Tumwater and Capital. An uninspired Hoquiam team is first.

“If you play Hogenhout to his right, he’s nothing,” Abe informs us on the trip home. We’d just beaten a Hoquiam team of 13 guys and one girl. The back of the bus smells like dried sweat, wet grass and the mud still stuck to our cleats. “He’s got no right foot,” Abe continues.

We scout everyone. Besides Hogenhout, we can talk smack about the best players: Olympia’s Brian Creely, John Burbidge, and Matt Brian Tin; Chehalis’ Valentine brothers; Capital’s Nguyen cousins (there are four); and tonight, after a few minutes of trashing Hoquiam and their surprisingly female midfielder, we settle into our regular Hogenhout bashing. BP and Chevron stations fade to darkness, then reappear a few minutes later.

We are outsiders. The name Hogenhout means nothing to kids at our high school, football-dominated small-towners. Soccer games at Shelton High usually draw out to the stadium only huddled parents in groups of two or three scattered around empty stands.

“If coach lets me mark him, I’ll shut his a** down.” It’s LeGaull again. Rain assaults the bus on the way to Chehalis. The right windshield wiper quit a few minutes ago. Blurry green exit signs point to Pacific Avenue, The Evergreen State College, The Capitol, South Puget Sound Community College, and Cooper Point cut-off. We take the Tumwater-Portland exit and roll right past the turn-off to Costco, towards a soggy grass field fresh with new puddles. You never know whether the ball will skip across the water or stop dead on top like a teed-up golf ball.

“We know who he is and what he can do. If we just mark him close he can’t score.” This time it’s a confident Justin Watters, one of our lock-down defensive backs, coming back on the bus from a win at Capital against the Nguyens.

The next away game would be against Olympia.

“No way they score on us. No way.” Everyone has started talking smack now, on the bus to Olympia, on a clear spring day.

“We’ll own them just like the first game.”

“They ain’t nothing. Especially Hogenhout.”

During warm-ups we watch the best player in the Black Hills League. We watch his shot, hard and dropping like a cruise missile, and his passes, skipping sure and swift over the grass. When he comes back out after halftime we notice that he’s changed his black cleats; from ones with a small, white swoosh to a fresh pair, with a bigger, yellow swoosh.

On the bus home that night, dirty and bruised, we pass Subways, Taco Bells and Burger Kings. LeGaull pays homage.

“That was some BS. I’ve never seen three luckier goals in my life.”

Cory Armstrong-Hoss lives in Everett with his wife and three kids. At last count his kids have played nine different sports. He’s a lifelong athlete, and he’s served as a coach, ref, and youth sports administrator. Find him at substack.com/@atahossforwords