Mr. T-Shirt

For years now I’ve been coasting on the T-shirts I collected between the ages of about 9 and 19–the decade I played on highly competitive youth soccer teams based in northern and central New Jersey. These teams were not affiliated with any school, but rather with private clubs. They’re what suburban soccer junkies call “select” teams, meaning the players were drawn from disparate towns and often traveled long distances for practice.

We traveled even farther for games. Looking back, I shudder to think how many hours my parents spent behind the wheel, on weekdays and weekends and holidays, and how much money they shelled out for hotel rooms as we passed our summers shuttling up and down I-95 or the Garden State Parkway to far-flung tournaments. At nearly every venue the organizers would be hawking T-shirts, and I almost always bought one. I gradually accrued several drawers’ worth.

It wasn’t hard. During our 1993-94 season we played over 100 games. (If memory serves, we won almost 90.) That number was swelled by indoor competitions where several short games could be slated for a single day. Memorial Day often meant Maryland: a tournament in either the Potomac or Columbia area. The Pocono (Pennsylvania) and Liberty (Long Island) Cups were regular summer fixtures. In high school we made an annual post-Christmas pilgrimage to Florida for the Tampa Bay Sun Bowl, which was a magnet for college recruiters. I still have my Sun Bowl ’97 and Sun Bowl ’98 T-shirts. My Sun Bowl ’96 shirt finally became too torn to wear.

Others, such as my 1994 Charles River United Cup shirt, have met a similar fate, though I hate to throw a T-shirt away. I think of them all as keepers. While many older ones have been retired, the more recent additions–like my 2001 USASA National Cup shirt–still function as gym attire. So does my 1995 “Langhorne Striker Premier Invitational” shirt.

It isn’t easy to explain the manic world of select-team soccer to a civilian–the endless car trips, the sacrifice of prime vacation time, and the hyper-intensity of certain parents. One of the parents on our team, who became a de facto assistant coach, worked as a dentist. His office assistant had a strict policy for incoming phone calls, which she shared only half in jest: “People in pain–we ask them to hold. Soccer callers–we put them right through.”

I once was told of a player whose mother called the New Jersey governor’s office to complain when her dear son failed to make an Olympic Development squad. (This is the feeder program for the U.S. national team.) Knowing as I did both player and mother, I found the story perfectly plausible. Not for nothing do they speak of “soccer moms from hell.”

My own parents were amused by the whole scene, happy just to watch the games and swap laughs on the sidelines. They still like to think of the Montclair Bombers–my team from 1990 to 1996–as a true dynasty, the youth-soccer equivalent of Wooden’s Bruins or Auerbach’s Celtics. The players and parents became quite close. When the team eventually splintered, my mother graciously offered the thought that, “If the Beatles had to break up, I guess the Bombers can, too.”

I’m nearly 25 now: more than two years removed from college soccer and more than 12 years removed from the acquisition of my oldest remaining T-shirt. I discovered it a few years ago in a corner of my closet. It’s from a two-week trip our team took to England in April 1994, while I was in sixth grade. (We went to Holland two years later.) It must’ve been an extra, because the lettering and colors are still bright, indicating it has rarely been washed. I outgrew a smaller version of it long ago.

Someday this one will be torn and threadbare, too. But like all former athletes pining for their salad days, I hope that won’t be for a long time.

DUNCAN CURRIE