UUNITED Soccer Team Ends Fall Season

That's right, sports-fans - the UU juggernaut that is the UUNITED soccer team has finished it's 2007 Outdoor Season! True, we ended the season with only one win (the first game of the season!), but it was a fine season nonetheless.

We played hard and often above ourselves, earning draws with much more experienced teams and losing a number of games in the final bruising seconds as the clock ran out. No matter how you look at it, I think our team definately triumphed in the "Team Spirit" and "Having Fun" departments.

From 4-foot nothing Chanida Thongplengsri's tenacious, take-no-prisoners defense of players literally twice her size to Chiles Friedman's weekly impersonation of the Energizer Bunny to Elliott Davis' on-field "Pirate" persona, every game was challenging, fun and left me counting the days before we would play again.

Each week we would end our games by awarding the honorary Captaincy to another of our scrappy and eminently deserving teammates, who would then lead us in our weekly cheer, which was first chanted almost four years ago in Chicago by the first incarnation of UUNITED:

"1-2-3

U-UNITED

YAR!!!"

(the "Yar" pirate bit was added this year by Elliott)

I always get a little depressed at the end of a season. It's like the end of a theatre production or a class or any other project - some people stick around, other people drift off - no matter how you look at it, things will no longer be the same. Always leaves me a little bit blue. In fact, back in my theatre days, I used to do my best to avoid "take-down" after a show because I found it so depressing. I handle endings much better now (perhaps I have matured somewhat), but still...

Of course I feel much better looking ahead to the coming weeks. We are switching to a Tuesday night indoor league - which will be lots of fun - and a whole new challenge. For those of you who don't know, indoor soccer is radically different than outdoor soccer. It is really a hybrid of soccer and hockey! We play on an oval turf field about the size of an ice-hockey rink. The walls are made of curved plexiglass and you can play the ball off the walls!! It's really fun, and very fast-paced; non-stop sprinting instead of the more measured endurance required by outdoor soccer.

My lungs will not be happy for the first couple weeks...

Anyway, I just want to close by thanking all my teammates (and our patiently tolerant families and cheerleaders) for one of the most fun seasons I have had yet. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

See you on the pitch!

Aaron