Scott

Open the trunk of my car and in about three seconds you’ll know. Inside are a gigantic mesh bag of soccer balls, boxes of spare uniforms, and scads of orange cones, air pumps, roster sheets, and all the other impedimenta of youth soccer.   Yes, I am a soccer coach. Twice over, actually, as I …

Continue reading Lessons learned on the pitch

It seems every father of a daughter, when she is born, has some joke about never letting her date until she’s 30 years old. Whether it involves standing on the front porch with a shotgun to keep boys away or sending our little girl to a convent when she turns 13, the urge to protect our …

Continue reading The Dating Game

My wife and I have five children. None are adopted, none are from other marriages, none are the products of multiple births. Just five kids, each born separately to us over the space of about 13 years. In the time and place where I grew up (suburban Cleveland in the 1970s and 80s), this would …

Continue reading Having a Large Family