Support the Washington Spirit

The Washington Spirit is the area's newest professional sports team, participating in the newly formed National Women's Professional League. The Spirit played their first pre-season game last night against 2012 College Cup runner-up Penn State.

See their website www.washingtonspirit.com or another write up on the All White Kit blog.

Just shy of 700 people attending the preseason game in about 40 degree weather. With the bigger name National team players playing with the bigger name National team currently, game featured lesser known players (although many of them were familiar names to any who follows collegiate or the younger national teams). The skill on display was still impressive and the game was well played.

The Spirit have four more FREE pre-season games in the next few weeks. I encourage soccer fans to go and have a look and not just those with soccer-playing daughters!

Of course, if you do have a soccer-playing boy or girl, you should plan to go as often as you can. To see soccer at this level up close, to hear the chatter on the field, to enjoy the game and cheer for team - this is incredibly valuable for our budding athletes AND for our parent/child relationship.

At the game yesterday, I listened to a family of four a few rows behind me. The two kids (boy and girl) were probably six or seven years old. The dad must have been their rec league coach and was doing his best to point out runs and moves and rules. He wasn't always right but he was trying and,

Not once did they get antsy or beg for food. I heard no complaints about the cold. They picked out numbers and tried to guess their positions. They were able to assign names to the players because they could hear the players talking to themselves.

It was nice. For at least 90 minutes, the dad/coach had an engaging and thoughtful conversation with his kids.

The games are close. The games are inexpensive. The skill level is good.

See you there.