A Most Amazing Place

Follow me, if you will, to an amazing place. Exotic is the word that best describes it, although the location is anything but.

I go there every Saturday night. To get there, you drive through a trailer park in North Salem — not exactly the poshest neighborhood, I must admit. In fact, I’ve seen warehouses that were fancier.

No matter.

Inside, you’d swear you were in a different country — soccer country.

It’s the Salem Indoor Soccer arena, and the only language spoken here is soccer.

My 10-year-old recently started playing indoor soccer there. The coach of his Stayton YMCA team kept them together after the fall outdoor league and moved them inside.

I’ve been in a lot of unusual places before, but I’d never seen anything like this.

Swarms of soccer-playing kids stream through the narrow passageways around the field with their parents, brothers and sisters in tow. Non-stop soccer games take place on the field, which is about the size and shape of a hockey rink, but covered with green artificial grass instead of ice. The atmosphere is like a bowling alley, curling rink and a hockey rink combined.

As they play, the parents sit in the bleachers, hollering in English Spanish and who-knows-what other language for their kids, hoping they’ll be the next Pele or Zidane.

I am not a soccer fan — far from it. The last “real” soccer game I watched was the World Cup finals on television, and that was only because my kids were so hyped up about it.

And the rules of soccer? Who knows what they are. I couldn’t tell a yellow card from an offsides call.

To me, it just doesn’t matter. I see hundreds of kids having a great time competing and running their legs off and I just can’t complain.

I’m not one of those parents who’s deluded that his son will go from this league to the pros.

In fact, I’d just as soon my kid skip the David Beckham route, if it involves taking part in the Hollyweird scene. The more I hear about those dudes, the more convinced I am that they are smoke and mirrors — and I don’t want to know what kind of smoke.

I just like the fact that somewhere kids can play for the sake of playing, without the pressure put on them by some sports.

To run free and do your best without worry about “having” to win is one of the best gifts we can give our kids.