Soccer dads every bit as tough as footballers

By Columnist - Columnist

Rock Hill at its core is a tough, scraped-skin-on-the-knuckles town. Blue collar, a city growing all the time from textile roots to a place pushing 75,000 people in a county almost a quarter-million strong.

It's a city where high school glory and a father's sports pride was almost always measured in yards on a football field.

Football player fathers stalk stands and sidelines, tough guys who have tough sons. But soccer, Northwestern High School soccer specifically, again tonight for the fifth time in six years with a state title on the line in Columbia, has soccer dads just as loud, vocal and passionate as any football father.

Photo 1: Soccer dads every bit as tough as footballers

Yes, soccer. Soccer has taken a long time to catch on here. Northwestern is the exception. You have to be tough to play on this team -- the fathers expect nothing less.

"My son came home from the game Tuesday night with holes in his leg from somebody's cleats," said David Benson, whose son, Robbie, is the Trojans' captain. His older son, Vance, was captain last year at Northwestern. "Two players were kicked in the face. After practice Wednesday, the team needed ice baths. Not ice bags. Baths."

One of the biggest goals Robbie Benson ever made, a game winner, was made playing with a broken nose. His father told him to keep plugging.

At Northwestern's practice Friday afternoon, before tonight's game against arch-rival Spring Valley, soccer dad Andre Parks talked about his two sons on the team, Cody and Corey. One broke an ankle during a soccer game.

Bill Foster -- his son Ryan broke an arm in a soccer game.

Mike Ferguson's son, Shawn -- stress fracture.

Jon Arnson's son, Ben, hasn't broken a bone. "Yet," Arnson said.

In nearly every other country on Earth besides the United States, soccer is the national game. The toughest, best athletes play it.

But in America, and around here, football -- American football, that is -- is almost always king. Except at Northwestern. Football is terrific there, but soccer is the butt of no jokes when the boys' team is the school's signature success. Young soccer players who end up at Northwestern often have traveled together through the years to games, played together on club teams and then high school teams, so the fathers become tight. They drive all over the country to games.

A "small, but loud social circle," as Benson put it.

The sons are tough, the fathers, too.

"Soccer is a sport of fitness, skill, but at the level Northwestern is at right now and has been for years, it is about toughness, too," said Gary Brannan, who had two sons play on those state title game teams. "Soccer fans, fathers, can go psycho just like football fans. Maybe worse. It is a contact sport. Soccer dads may not be as famous, or infamous, as 'soccer moms,' but they are just as passionate."

Jim Clinton's son, James, was captain at Northwestern two years ago. "My son had the tibia in his leg broken in a game, the same game the goalie had his teeth knocked out," Jim Clinton said. "Soccer is more than just a contact sport. It's a physical, at times brutal, contact sport."

Soccer games last an hour and a half. Players run almost the whole time. Take Northwestern's soccer coach, Dom Wren, the Englishman. A tough little electrified coil of wire he is, a guy who has a tattoo on his leg that he undoubtedly gave himself as a younger man with the only anesthetic an ice cold beer. This guy is the poster child for tough.

Soccer moms get made fun of sometimes for their zeal, but I dare anybody to make fun of these Northwestern soccer dads. Tonight, these fathers will scream and yell and might need to be restrained if the refs make a bad call.

Sounds like the very best of Rock Hill sports fathers.

Advance on tonight's state championship game • 1C

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