It was a special Saturday night, Nov. 15, at Shoreline Stadium for local sports fans, especially for supporters of both Shorewood and Shorecrest’s girls soccer teams. Both hosted quarterfinal matches in the state tournament.
Under unseasonably warm and dry skies, with a full moon peeking in and out of the clouds, the 4A T-Birds were nipped by Woodinville and eliminated. The Scots eked out a win over Olympic and have now advanced to the 3A semifinals this weekend.
It’s quite a feat for both of the Shoreline School District’s teams to advance this deeply into the playoffs.
This accomplishment reminds us of the saying “Success has many parents, while failure is an orphan.”
The T-Birds brilliant first year coach Nathan Davis, and the Scots’ ebullient coach Mindy Dalziel, deserve much of the credit for their teams’ success, as do the players for the hard work and dedication to the sport they have shown.
Yet any of us who live in Shoreline and Lake Forest Park, and who drive past patches of green big enough to hold a soccer game, know that on any fall Saturday those fields are full, all day long, with children playing and learning this ultimate team game.
And on every sideline stands a coach, usually one of the moms or dads, who is charged with teaching, encouraging, motivating and, above all, nurturing their boys and girls, some of them barely out of rompers. It’s likely they’re the ones who introduced the words “offense” and “defense” to the kids’ vocabularies, and who were the first to teach them the simple act of how to kick a ball.
These coaches’ names are known to only a handful today, although I’m sure the girls who played for their schools this weekend remember them.
Here’s a tip of the cap to these unsung heroes of the local soccer scene.
Frank Workman
Shoreline
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