My mother gave my father one demand before he stepped out of the delivery room to run to the store, ‘Make sure you are not late to your child’s birth’.
Sure enough, my father ended up being late by a couple seconds as he ran to a nearby sporting goods store to grab me a soccer ball that I could hold onto as I was born. This little story is the epitome of how important soccer has been to me in my life, and how there are many moments in life I have overcome to get to the point I am at now.