Nebraska Is Lovely This Time of Year

Hello Foresters.

I noticed it has been an obscenely long time since I posted on the blog and I can't say this one is going to be especially scintillating. I simply wanted to post a goodbye. At least for now.

For those of you who haven't heard, my wife just graduated from her surgical residency program in Chicago and was offered a one year surgical fellowship at University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. We moved here two weeks ago and although I can't exactly say its starting to feel like home, it is beginning to sink in that we are not simply taking an extended vacation to the Heartland. This is our life. So life in Chicago goes on without us, at least for this year.

I cannot say what will happen to the blog and the @lfcfutbol twitter account but I hope they stay somewhat active in my absence.

I brought my Lake Forest wardrobe to Omaha with me and I plan on wearing the "Wear in the hell is Grinnell" t-shirt before your matchup with the Pioneers. I will catch what games I can online and cheer loudly/mutter incessantly under my breath from our living room instead of my "office" down the sideline near the water cooler. I will think of you whenever order a Pumpkin Spice latte or chew a stick of gum before a run. And when the autumn air turns crisp and the supermarket shelves are stocked with freshly picked apples, my thoughts will turn to you and a little sadness will creep into my heart. I have loved almost every minute of my years with the Foresters and I miss being a part of college soccer in the Midwest already. Hope to see you all very soon.

How To Sleep On A Bus, by The Team

Letter from an alum

Lisa Sorensen, who was a member of our Midwest Conference Championship team last year, was asked to write a letter this year to the men's team as they prepared for the conference tourney. She wrote them this:

Boys, 

When asked to talk to you all about my experience of going to the NCAA tournament I was excited because I really love talking about it.  If you were to ask Charlie, he would probably say he hears about how amazing it was more times then he would like.  That is because the experience is nearly impossible to describe.  I guess if I had to sum it up into one sentence, I would say it is really a once in a life time opportunity.  

When I was a rookie, I came into camp not even having the NCAA tournament a thought in my mind.  I didn't really think that it was something that was even feasible for our women's team because it has only happened one other time in school history.  We made it to the conference tournament that year and didn’t get past the first round.  It bothered me but I thought to myself that I have 3 more years, no big deal.  Again, my sophomore year we lost the first round, but again I had two more years.  My junior year we didn’t even qualify for the tournament and I thought that I blew my chances the first two years.  Then senior year came around and we set the goal of going to the NCAAs.  Our season played out like yours, where a team that shouldn’t have beaten us in regular season did and I thought that the hopes of hosting had gone down the drain.  However, we ended up being conference champs and hosting the tournament.    During the second half of the championship game I will never forget when my coach yelled at me with about 15 min left saying to run faster to get back on defense.  I literally wanted to punch her in the face because I felt as though I had given everything that I could the entire game, but then she continued to yell saying that if I rest now, I'll also be resting when St. Norbert was going to the NCAA's the next weekend or I could dig deep and work harder and rest tomorrow on our day off.  It was then I realized that we could actually be going to the NCAAs.  We ended up winning and from that moment those indescribable feelings began.  

I still had no idea what to expect when I knew we were headed to the NCAA's, TR just kept giving me his generic response saying that it is a lot of fun.  I thought that the overnight road trip once a season was fun and thought it would be similar.  However it is completely different.  The road to the NCAA's began with the drawings of the bracket.  I remember watching the drawings for the NCAA in the Dau room as a team. The feelings of excitement and anticipation of where we will be playing and who our opponent was unreal. I had the biggest butterflies waiting for Lake Forest College to appear on TV.  Each time they moved on to the next team you just hope that your next so you can finally know who you are playing and where.  We ended up drawing a team from Minnesota but playing in Iowa… I had never been more excited to going to Iowa in my life.  

The weekend of the tournament is by far the best weekend I had at Lake Forest College.  The day we left for the NCAA tournament was also something special. I felt like the Women's soccer team was the most important thing on campus.  All of the other teams, coaches, and the athletic department is there escorting you off, even Public Safety literally escorted our bus to the highway.  As weird as that sounds it felt pretty awesome knowing that everyone was watching us go wishing it was them who was on that bus.  Also, there are many perks of the NCAA paying for your trip which is very nice… The hotel you stay at is so much nicer, you all get your own bed and they are WAY more comfortable beds then what you get on the one away trip of the season.  The food is by far way better. We never had a price limit, (although we were told not to go crazy) but I did have a 4 course meal one night.  When game day comes you feel like someone important the moment you step off the bus. You get a badge that allows you in certain places no one else can go and get all the treatment that you need/want with out hesitation.  Most importantly the memories you make as a team literally will last forever.  When talking about it to others I find myself saying over and over again that it was just an amazing experience that is so hard to describe that I will never forget.  

Looking back over my four years of playing, I feel very lucky to be a part of a team who has been to the NCAAs. Going back to what Kim yelled at me during the conference final game about running faster makes me realize that it is SO worth it to work as hard as possible and never give up during the games you are about to play in this weekend. Whether you play the full 90, a few minutes, or not at all, whether you have 3 more years ahead of you or its your last season, the time that you do play, or even spend cheering on your teammates is very important when playing for a spot in the NCAA tournament.  You never know if the opportunity will come again.  It's only been done a few times for the men's team in school history and to say that you are one of the teams who got the opportunity to go is an amazing feeling.

Good luck this weekend and I can't wait to celebrate with you on Saturday.

Lisa

Tourney Time!

We leave campus today at 3pm and play Monmouth College tomorrow in De Pere at 11am. The winner advances to the Conference Championship at 6pm on Saturday and plays the winner of the St. Norbert/Grinnell game. All games should be streaming through the St. Norbert website. Go to the schedule page here and click on our game. Most of all--WISH US LUCK!

Thanks for your support all season long! See ya in De Pere. 

Halloween

Due to extremely wet weather and our range of injuries we spent the hilarious Halloween practice indoors for the first time in recent memory. While this kept us dry, it also meant that we all got a little warm pretty early and didn't spend much time in full costume. I had to work hard to try to capture everyone in the first 15 minutes.

The giraffe and the zookeeper checking out the tennis players and the stripped down Batman across the circle

Harry Potter gazes longingly at the team, wishing she knew a spell to cure her concussion

Just horsin' around

The hula girl and tennis players are in character. I suppose the giraffe is too. 

A couple superheroes who are braving the heat. The Fat Cat got warm and stripped off her costume. She is fixing her shoes above. They have a tendency to come untied. 

Blades of Glory and our Hula Girl

Conference Tournament Time!

Well, it's official. The Lake Forest Foresters are the #3 seed in the upcoming Midwest Conference Tournament to be held in De Pere, WI just outside Green Bay at St. Norbert College.

We still have one more regular season game to play against a team that will not be participating in the Tournament. This game still means something for a few reasons:

1) Lawrence University will most likely play hard--it would be a nice end to their season to beat the current Conference Champions on their own turf.

2) Its our last game before heading to De Pere the following Friday. We want to set a tone for ourselves. If we could duplicate the energy and movement we played with against Lawrence last season we would set ourselves up well going into our Tournament week.

3) Lawrence is Coach Geiser's alma mater. She ALWAYS wants to beat them handily (but respectfully).

A few more photos

Two shots of the emerging autumn colors on Old Elm road last week. I think this week is probably better but I don't have a more recent one. Perhaps I'll have a chance to get one this afternoon. 

 Michelle "Mickey" Greeneway is one of three Foresters (Nina Perkkio and Holly "Little Giant" Lesperence being the other two) who play two sports. Unfortunately the end of soccer season and the beginning of hockey season overlap, meaning that they are often attending two practices a day or playing a couple games over the course of the weekend. By the end of last week this had taken a toll and when the ball bag got emptied so the players could begin to warm up, Mickey took the opportunity to crawl inside of it and take a nap on some pinnies, using the cones as a pillow.

 Some nice fall color in the Benedictine University parking lot on Wednesday evening. If you want to know what kind of tree this is you'll have to ask Mr. Hillis. Apparently New Englanders study these kinds of things.

Lucky for you parents, this weekend is our annual PARENTS WEEKEND and you will have an opportunity to discuss trees and naps with both Mr. Hillis and the Greeneways. There will be adult beverages and all kinds of tasty food in the parking lot before our Saturday game. Please join our greatest fans for some snacks and mingling before our noon kickoff.

Lincoln and Locomotives

For those of you who have been on pins and needles regarding the over/under prize-less "bet" on number of minutes spent waiting for a train to pass in Galesburg....the overs won. We arrived within Galesburg city limits, drove past a few gas stations and bars, and then spent 12 minutes waiting for a train. This train in fact:

As for the "Lincoln" part of this post, it again has to do with Knox and its proud tradition. I have written about this before here but I'll repost the pertinent paragraphs (to get info on the asterisks you'll have to go to the original posting): 

 In 1858, a previously little-known circuit lawyer named Abraham Lincoln was running for the United States Senate against the incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas. Douglas was a Democrat who had earned the nickname "Little Giant"* because although he was quite short, he was a forceful speaker and a dominant figure in politics. Lincoln was running as a Republican, a party that had just recently been established in Ripon, WI, a primary plank of their platform being that slavery should not spread beyond its current borders.**

Two years before the Civil War these two candidates met seven times all over the state in a series of intense debates, now known as the Lincoln-Douglas debates. One candidate would speak for 60 minutes, then the other for 90 minutes, and then the first would have 30 minutes to reply. On October 7, 1858, they met at Knox College, on a temporary stage outside their Old Main classroom building*, where Douglas publicly stated that the Declaration of Independence was not meant to apply to non-whites. "The Government was made by our fathers on the white basis...made by white men for the benefit of white men and their prosperity forever." Lincoln, on the other hand, perhaps comforted by the abolitionist spirit of Knox College and Galesburg, took the opportunity to announce for the first time, his moral opposition to the institution of slavery.

Following our game on Saturday I took a quick tour of the Knox campus and found Old Main, which has two large plaques posted outside its door celebrating the great debate and its participants. A current student filled me in on the crawling-out-the-window story that I had heard. Looking at the front of the building below you can see the green doors, the two plaques on either side of it (Lincoln to the left, Douglas on the right), and the large window to the left of the door. 

Apparently, the debate was held just in front of this building. A large platform had been erected across the face of it that was high enough to block the door and part of the windows. Each candidate had been given a room inside the building to relax and prepare for the debate, and when the time came to take the stage,  Douglas, understanding that he couldn't walk out the front directly onto the stage, went out the back and walked around the building and up some steps to the debate platform. Lincoln, in a moment that historians and forensic psychologists could probably spend weeks dissecting, simply opened the window nearest to him, and climbed out onto the platform. All six foot, four inches of him.  

The famous window

In our current political climate, YouTube footage of this event would have been almost immediately available on Twitter and whatever cable news station was for States' Rights would have ridiculed this gangly, awkward, country bumpkin who taught himself to read by firelight from borrowed books. Alternatively he would be accused of trying to appear folksy and common when really he was lawyer who didn't at all understand what a farm laborers life was like. He would have not only lost the 1858 Senate election in Illinois but likely wouldn't have made it as a candidate for President in 1860 and our world may be very different than it is today. I've thought about this moment all week and I've decided that I like the folksiness of it. I like the lack of pretension it shows. Again, he probably didn't even spend two seconds debating whether to go out the window or all the way around the building and here I am discussing it on a soccer blog in 2013! 

To Galesburg and Beyond

An actual Prairie Fire

Well, its here. The cold weather, the meat of our season, the games that ALWAYS matter, and the Pumpkin Spice Latte.

The Foresters have been big fans of the PSL ever since it was introduced in 2004/05. Perhaps it is all the time spent outdoors together in Autumn, but it is almost always a topic of discussion among the players. This year's team has decided that the PSL available at Panera is by far the best. More to come on this important topic soon.

The weather has certainly gotten chillier recently. Last week's sunny and 70s has given way to gloomy and 50s. Shorts weather appears to have come and gone along with the evening light. The sun is setting noticeably earlier these days and warm up jackets are a fixture at practice. The good news is that it appears the sun will be shining in Galesburg tomorrow for our fixture with The Knox College Prairie Fire. I have written more extensively on the proud egalitarian tradition of Knox College in past years so, on the off chance you are interested, please go here and look at a post from last year.

Really, to the players, the most noticeable part of a trip to Galesburg is the frequency with which the team bus gets trapped behind trains. The town, which has long been a crossroads for railroad traffic, is littered with train tracks, and when you combine that with a typically cautious bus driver (which I am in NO WAY complaining about), you get quite a few minutes of our lives spent in Western Illinois waiting for trains to pass through. The over/under on minutes spent waiting tomorrow is 7. I will report back.

So, after Knox we have a mid-week non -conference game in the western suburbs, followed by a HUGE home-stand against Illinois College and Monmouth. IC has played most teams in the conference really tough this year and, as of right now, Monmouth is ahead of us in the rankings with just one loss in conference. Two wins would be great for us but I don't want to look ahead too far. For more on rankings and record go to the Midwest Conference website.

I'm not sure that video will be available from the field but our game is at 1pm and if I remember I'll post an update on Twitter. Follow us at @LFCfutbol

For those of you interested: