UUNITED Soccer Team: Stylish Even in Victory!

UU Sportswire, Denver. A rag-tag team of Unitarian Universalists emerged victorious after their first match of the season, a well-played game against plucky, “Just for Fun.”

The team, UUNITED, has a vibrant roster stacked with women and men from both the First Universalist and First Unitarian churches. Players range widely in age and experience, but all share the same UU-spirit. Their uniforms are navy blue, with a flaming chalice emblazoned on the chest with a soccer ball rising up from the flames. Very stylish indeed!

In the first half it seemed there were blue jerseys everywhere, with crisp passing, sturdy defending and creative offense on display. Most striking, however, was the playful sense of teamwork, a theme that really sums up this new team.

The final score was 2-0, and the team celebrated with fresh orange slices on the sidelines, and enjoyed the sun. As we were getting ready to leave, a young player from one of the other teams came up and asked, “Are you guys Unitarians?” “Yep”, I answered. “That’s awesome,” he replied, with a smile. Evangelism on the soccer pitch; who woulda thunk it!?

What I found most rewarding about the whole thing is the warm and playful spirit of togetherness that has characterized our time together, whether in practice, in "real" games and in all those moments in between: sitting under the shade of the big trees next to the field, sharing our well-deserved orange slices, or tossing a sun-warmed water bottle to someone who needs it.

The air of goodwill and genuine support of one another is pretty rare, in my experience - especially in the all-too-often testosterone and ego-driven world of sports. As one teammate put it to me after our first game, "It's great to be a part of a team that respects everyone else no matter the skill level. Keeping with that, I look forward to making some finely squeezed juice out of them juicy fruits (the name of the next team we play)!"

I also relish the kind of relationships that develop between us as we play. Running around together kicking and chasing bouncing balls over a big green field encourages a very different way of being together, of relating, than most of us experience in our day to day lives. There isn't a lot of opportunity (or spare oxygen) for deep conversation, but that doesn't mean the relationships are not genuine and deep. The laughter, the high fives, and the pats-on-the-backs are a language of their own, spoken without words - but nonetheless sincere and oddly intimate. After all, where else in our lives to we touch relative strangers so freely?

There are ex-teammates of mine in Chicago who I still feel very close to. This seems somewhat inexplicable, since in some cases I knew them for over a year before I even knew what they did for a living or where they lived! An odd kind of intimacy.

The split-second glances between myself and a team-mate who is streaking down the field is hard to describe - but in that frozen flash in time, we both know exactly what I am going to (try) to do with the ball, and what the receiver needs to do to make ready. Then, when the ball spins off my foot to my teammate's foot, it feels like much more than a ball has covered that distance. In a very real way, something of ourselves has passed between us in that instant. There is a kind of attunement there that I suspect requires embodiment - attunement that requires a more integrated kind of mind, body and spirit relationship than we ordinarily experience in our day to day relationships.

This is not to say that team sports is the end-all-be-all or anything, just that playing soccer now, with these people, at this time in my life - reminds me of how much more there is of me, and how much more I am capable of when I remember to be more fully embodied.

When, the fans ask, is the next game? Glad you asked – UUNITED’s next game will be on September 8th at 11:10am, when we will take on the intimidatingly named, “Juicy Fruits.” The game will be played on Grass Field #2 at Dick’s Sporting Good’s Park (where the Colorado Rapids play). So come on out and cheer your new (and did I mention, stylish?) team on!