Weekend Update

Friday night, I did much of nothing. Jay and Nate stopped by and we grilled out in the backyard and watched the Brewers lose. Saturday I went down to Germanfest to play in the sheepshead tournament with The General, Justus, Roman and Preston. Yes all three Klink boys were together. And I guess I really have no problem saying that out of the 5 of us, I am the best sheepshead player. Then again, I am sure that doesn't surprise anyone. Saturday night, I went to Dousman Derby Days. It is pretty much a high school reunion for the Kettle Moraine area. Justus stopped down and we ran into Mark Thome. This leads me to one of my lost and forgotten stories. I have been making an effort to make mental notes of the stories that I tell so that I can put them down in writting to share with all of you. This one goes back to the summer after my freshman year in college. I was playing U-23 soccer with Reinders. We had a great team, but we were a bit unorganized. That being the case we often played short handed. On this one particular evening we were playing and only had 9 players. Normally you would have 4 defenders in a game. We only had 3, Matt Kaker, Justus and myself. This being the case we employed a tactic called an offsides trap. This might be over the head of some non soccer playing readers, but it is somewhat in material. Anyhow, in the first half, our goalie, Dan Green, his father was helping out the referee by working the sidelines on our half of the field. So when the ball went out of bounds he would put up his flag, or if the other team was offsides he would also raise his flag to help out the referee. As I said we were pulling a number of offside traps and they were working rather well. The game was tied 1-1 at half time. Then we switched sides of the field. We continued with the offside traps in the second half, but the person working the flag on the other side of the field was the younger brother of one of the guys on the other team. This kid refused to put his flag up when the other team was offsides. The 3rd of 4th time this happened, it was on my side of the defensive field and the ball was played to the corner. I was pretty mad, so I slide tackled the guy with the ball and got it from him, then proceeded to dribble up the side line. Now this is the part of the story to pay attention to. I am dribbling up the sidelines probably no more than 3 or 4 feet from the line. And there is no one within 15 yards of me. As I am dribbling, I see the kid with the flag standing near mid field next to the other teams coach. I am still mad at this kid for doing such a horrible job with the flag, so when I get right next to them. I stop, turn and fire the ball as hard as I can at the kid. Mind you the kid is probably 15 or 16. Well to be honest my marksmanship with a soccer ball isn't the greatest in the world, and even though the kid was maybe 8 feet away at the most. I missed and hit the coach for the other team. After this I just jog back into my defensive position. Every player on the field and everyone watching was utterly shocked by this display. I acted like it was no big deal. After the game, which I think ended up 1-1, my team was sitting together changing our shoes and Tom Kopatich says to me "Hey, what was with that shot you took at the other coach?" And the rest of the team looked at me as well and were all waiting for an answer. I said "That kid was pissing me off. I had to do something." To which Tom replied, "But I was making a run." As I mentioned we were down 2 players, and just before I kicked the ball out of bounds, we had what you might call a 4 on 7 break going. So I said to Tom, "Tom, we weren't going to score." Maybe it isn't a funny story, or you had to be there, but the imagery of someone stopping in the middle of a game and kicking the ball at the flag man, I think is highly comical.
The sheepshead tournament.
Justus and Mark Thome at Derby Days.