Life is full of choices. Or at least that is what my mom told me when I fought that kid in fifth grade over a four square game, called him a son of a motherless goat (The Three Amigos was huge then), and had a little meeting with the principal. She also fed me that cliche when I got caught with three teammates from the Varsity soccer team smoking marijuana after practice, and again, got a glorious meeting with the principal.

It happened countless more times. Life is full of choices. It took me all the way to college to fully realize the choices we make. For the first time, I was in control. I could choose my college, my major, my life in no uncertain terms. I chose to stop playing soccer for the first time in more than a decade, for no small part because I could do what I wanted now without the threat of the principal's office or the watchful eye of parental wisdom. It wasn't that I hated soccer, but I knew it wasn't going to be my career because I wasn't THAT good, and moreover, there were a lot of things I wanted to do.

As the years slide by, you are faced with more questions with less or at least different opportunities. What do you want to do and how bad do you want it? Answer those questions honestly and proceed accordingly. It's that simple.

soccer on taurine

you wish you were me

So I play on this indoor team. One night I give him a ride to our game to this guy. Small talk in the car inevitable turns into "what do you do," so I casually ask him what he does for a living. He says he works for a company that films all the Nike US Soccer "Don't Tread On Me" ad campaigns. Shit, I thought to myself. I consider myself a pretty high level US MNT fan...or should I say...geek. Actually, I'd say I'm a pretty big geek, so you have to know this drew some serious interest to me. I'm kind of surprised the guy didn't jump out of the car and take rolling on asphalt at 50 mph than listen to my "oh shit man that is so cool, tell me all about it" shtick. Lucky for me, and his future self, he stayed, and to my surprise, ended up competing with me for title of #1 fan, at least as far as this automobile was concerned. I'm sure there are much bigger fans than me. How should I describe my fandom? How about this: I own the last three jerseys and have them on my wall (I happen to be 36 and married, not 16), I regularly check ussoccer.com and post on Big Soccer Boards and read Soccer America magazine religiously. I heavily follow any foreign team that carries any national team player; I even don't hate Landon Donovan (even though he left my favorite MLS team - the now defunct Earthquakes - to join the dark side, a.k.a. LA Galaxy). And of course, I go to any National team game I can and watch every game on TV I can't go to. And I should probably share that watching the game on TV is more like standing and screaming the entire time. So like I said, I know there are much bigger fans out there, but for a 36-year-old man with jerseys on his wall, I'd say I could hold my own with the big boys, or at least the big geeks.

This is a decidedly Wyoming story, because that's where I live and where this story is set. The state motto here is "Equal Rights" but it might as well be "Don't Tread on Me." Much like the American soccer team, Wyoming is a state that is overlooked and unknown. I admit I knew little about Wyoming before moving here for a job after college almost two years ago. I soon learned two important things about the state: the wind is as prevalent as Starbucks in my hometown of Seattle, and the terrain is surreal in its flatness. But that latter part can be a positive, too. To my delight, I found that my new place of residence had a sprawling 12-field soccer complex.

In the summer, we have the regular rec soccer leagues that I imagine take place in cities from South Carolina to California. But in the winter, that's when things really get interesting. When the wind blows the snow across the road so hard you can't see two feet in front of your car, when your nose hairs freeze every time you step out the door, that's when the soccer players in Wyoming pull back the curtain and reveal quite a show.

soccer is soccer is soccer

(The Field House at Chelsea Piers in lower Manhattan is to an athletic child as Wonka's factory is to the holders of a golden ticket. The enormous building breaks down into four sections: gymnastics, indoor soccer, baseball batting and pitching cages, and basketball. The warehouse-meets-locker room is absent of nearly all decoration, save for some muted banners, schedules, and a dozen sugar-filed vending machines guaranteeing to refill any calories lost to exercise. Would-be gymnasts swing from bars and rings falling onto the quintessential blue of padded mats and pools of foam cubes. Young girls bounce from room to room in leotards in search of their parents. Teams of uniformed children populate the spectator holding pen outside the two plexi-glass and net-lined soccer fields waiting for their chance to take the field. They are the saplings to the tree trunks of the teenagers waiting on the batting cages and basketball courts. The words Chelsea Piers are written across the front of every soccer player's jersey, except for one team. Arsenal is here in authentic glory, and the shimmering maroon jerseys stand out like a celebrity among the masses - as if Spike Lee or someone was here. And then in he walks with his son, Jackson).

dance with me

That shoot back in September where Atiba brought his skateboarding aesthetic over to our neck of the woods for the day was set up for one reason: the new 2006 kits. Thanks to the second thickest blanket of snow in New York City history, the photos I was hoping to take this morning at the U.S. release event didn't happen - the event was cancelled. So what better way to unleash the uniforms than by digging up some of the photos that I can now legally post.

Everybody is going to have their opinions - a few of you have already given yours - and style is never going to please everyone, but the way I see it, anytime you can represent the past without damning the future, it's a good thing. If the stripe held its line all the way through, these might be my favorite uniforms ever.

Let the sounding off begin. Here's a small taste of what will soon be populating other Websites near you.

kicking it off

"where have you gone Joe Dimaggio, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you."

I mentioned a young man last time out from Argentina. His story, his predicament really, is, well, why don't I let him tell it. Meet Mariano Malisani.

I'm a 20-year-old Human Resources Management student at Ashworth College in Rosario, Argentina, the last country before you get to the land of Shackleton and Scott, of Emperor Penguins and ice, and the country in which I was born, raised and have lived my entire life. So why do I LOVE the US MNT? Mine is a country filled with soccer history (not just the "Hand of God"), beautiful women, and a constantly struggling political system (so it's not like it is that different from the United States).

yes or no?

"you first" photo credit: National Geographic

There are so many perspectives, so many personal stories out there that represent soccer for each of those certain people. Together, those stories create what American soccer is. In geology - bear with me, I did say I used to be a geologist - there is kind of rock called a conglomerate. It is essentially many different kinds of smaller rocks held together by a matrix or glue, typically a substance that was once a liquid that has hardened, bringing the many smaller rocks into a single mass. Conglomerates can be loosely held together and brittle; they can sometimes be quite strong, depending on the tensile strength of the matrix, that substance which binds the separate entities. American soccer is a conglomerate.