Go for the Goal! (7 page)

T
here he is,” Josh said, pointing to the cabin near the entrance of High-Top Park. “Come on.”

Josh and Aidan waved goodbye to Josh’s father and walked quickly across the parking lot toward the cabin. Evan greeted his teammates with tight handgrips and quick shoulder bumps.

“That guy Berkeley is here again today,” Evan said. “Let’s get going. We got a lot of climbing to do.”

Berkeley smiled when he saw the three boys in their United jerseys. “Hey, it’s the soccer guys. How’s the team doing?”

“A lot better,” Josh said. “We’ve won six games in a row.”

“We even won a tournament over the Columbus Day weekend,” Evan added.

“Evan scored the game winner,” Aidan said, trying to lift his teammate’s arm in triumph. “We won on penalty kicks.”

“Whoa … sounds like you guys are doing a lot better than the last time I saw you,” Berkeley said. “Maybe that climbing session did the trick.”

“And all the team-building stuff Josh started,” Aidan added.

“Hey, what about me?” Evan protested. “I came up with the balloon game. I thought that was awesome.”

“What about Ms. Littlewood?” Josh said. “If she hadn’t assigned that research project, we wouldn’t have found out about the 1999 Women’s World Cup Team.”

“I don’t know what you guys are talking about,” Berkeley said. “But never mind. Let’s get started.” Berkeley looked over the boys’ heads. “Where’s the rest of the team?”

“It’s just the three of us,” Josh explained. “We figured this would be a fun thing to do together.”

Berkeley again reviewed the safety rules of the park as the boys stepped into their climbing harnesses and fastened all the clips. “It’s a double-clip system. There’s no way you can fall. There should only be one guy on an element at a time. Stay away from the diamond and double-diamond courses.”

“We did the blue course last time,” Josh said. “Which course should we try this time?”

Berkeley thought for a moment. “Follow the green course. It’s got a long zip line in the middle. I think you guys will like it.”

The three boys scrambled up the wide log ladder leading to the large platform that looked like a tree house. Josh looked out from the platform. The October leaves were beginning to fall. They sifted through the cool air and settled silently on the ground.

“There’s the first element on the green course,” Evan said. “I’ll go first.”

“I got second,” Aidan called.

Josh smiled. “I guess I’m last.”

The boys started off, climbing up rope ladders higher into the trees and across bridges made of swinging logs. After about twenty
minutes they stopped on a platform and caught their breath.

“Here’s the zip line Berkeley told us about,” Josh said. A long cable stretched tight from their platform to another one some distance away.

“It’s so far across, I can hardly see the other platform,” Aidan said.

Josh glanced at Evan. “You still want to go first?”

“No problem.” Evan attached his harness to the zip line, took a deep breath, and grabbed onto the top knob that moved along the line. “Here goes nothing,” he said as he pushed off the platform.

“Yeeoooowwweeee!”

As soon as Evan swung onto the far platform, he turned and called back, “Berkeley was right—this is great!”

A minute later, Aidan was with Evan, and Josh stood alone on his platform, staring at the long silent wire. He attached his harness to the zip line, grabbed onto the top knob, and stepped off.

The speed of the zip line surprised Josh.
The trees and branches rushed by in a blur of color.
This is a lot faster than the blue course,
he thought. Josh tightened his hands on the top knob. He didn’t mean to, but he triggered the brake system. The knob pressed against the wire and he came to a stop about ten yards short of the platform. Josh, still attached to the wire, dangled in the air. His heart jumped.

Don’t look down
, he thought.
Remember what Berkeley said: “There’s no way to fall.”

Josh stared at Aidan and Evan. They looked awfully far away.

“You can move forward by pulling on the wire!” Evan shouted. “Hand over hand, like this.” Evan and Aidan reached their hands over their heads and demonstrated how it was done.

Josh looked at the zip line above his head and began to pull at it with his hands. Slowly he began to inch forward. Closer … closer … closer to the platform. Evan and Aidan cheered him on.

“Come on, you can do it.”

“Keep pulling.”

As he neared the platform, Josh let go of the wire. His teammates, still clipped to a safety line, were leaning out from the platform with their hands extended. Josh reached for them, and Evan and Aidan grabbed his wrists and pulled him up. The boys traded high fives. Josh stood there for a moment, looking around at the trees—the red, yellow, and orange fall leaves—and his teammates. He thought about how the United season had turned around, how the United had really become a team.

Josh let his breath out in a rush and said, “I guess this is another win for the United.”

M
s. Littlewood was right; the 1999 United States Women’s World Cup soccer team was loaded with talent. Three Hall of Fame players led this extraordinary team:

Mia Hamm
was a high-scoring star of four national championship teams at the University of North Carolina (UNC). She scored 158 goals in international matches, a record for men and women.

Michelle Akers
was a dominating midfielder who had starred in college at the University of Central Florida. As strong a player as she was, though, Akers suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome, a condition that left her exhausted after matches.

Kristine Lilly,
Mia Hamm’s teammate at UNC, was a versatile forward and midfielder. She set a record for playing in 352 international matches.

But that wasn’t all. The team had Brandi Chastain, Carla Overbeck, and Joy Fawcett on defense and Briana Scurry in the goal. Julie Foudy played in the midfield and Tiffeny Milbrett played up front. There were so many outstanding players that All-Americans such as Shannon MacMillan from the University of Portland found it hard to get playing time.

Despite having an equally talented team (including many of the 1999 players), the 1995 U.S. team had failed to win the World Cup. That year, the U.S. women lost a heartbreaking game to Norway in the semifinals, 1–0.

When the U.S. team began training for the 1999 World Cup tournament, they knew they had to try something different to give them an edge in close games. So head Coach Tony DiCicco decided to hire sports psychologist Colleen Hacker to help the players with
their mental game, according to Jere Longman, author of
The Girls of Summer.

During her time as a soccer coach at Pacific Lutheran University, Hacker had led her team to three national titles in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), an organization of smaller colleges.

Hacker knew that the U.S. team already had terrific athletes. “My goal isn’t to fix problem athletes,” she said, according to Longman. “My ultimate goal is to take excellence and eke out a little more.”

The U.S. players had come together from different teams. Hacker wanted to get them to connect with one another and play together like a seasoned team. For example, when the team went on the road trips, she made sure the players changed roommates. That way, the players got to know different teammates better and didn’t just hang out with the same ones.

Hacker also led the players in team-building exercises similar to the ones Josh’s United team did. In one exercise, she had
players lead their teammates down a 600-foot cliff—blindfolded! The team-building exercises helped the players work together as a team, communicate with one another, and support each other when things went against them.

All the practice and team-building exercises paid off in the 1999 World Cup tournament. The U.S. team rolled through their first round of games (the Group stage), easily beating Denmark (3–0), Nigeria (7–1), and North Korea (3–0). The games were played in front of huge, enthusiastic crowds in New York, Chicago, and Boston. America was getting very excited about their team.

But winning a World Cup is never easy. In the first five minutes of the quarterfinal game against Germany—a game the U.S. had to win to stay in the running for the World Cup—Brandi Chastain accidentally knocked the ball into her own goal. The U.S. was behind, 1–0.

But Brandi’s teammates did not criticize Brandi for her costly mistake. Instead, Carla Overbeck, the team captain, went
over to her and, according to Longman, said, “This game is not over. There are 85 minutes left. We are going to win this thing. Don’t worry about it.”

The U.S. team came back—scoring three goals, including one by Brandi Chastain—to beat Germany, 3–2.

After defeating Brazil 2–0, the U.S. team was ready to play China in the finals. The game was going to be a tough one. China’s team—led by forward Sun Wen, one of the best players in the world—had crushed Norway 5–0 in the other semifinal.

More than 90,000 fans packed the sun-drenched Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, on July 10, 1999. Millions more watched on televisions all over the country.

The teams battled hard for two 45-minute halves in the 100-degree heat. Michelle Akers became so exhausted she had to leave the game. Akers listened to the rest of the game in a medical room underneath the Rose Bowl.

Neither team could get a ball into the net. The score was tied, 0–0, after the second half
and the game went into a 15-minute overtime.

China almost ended the game during overtime on a header off a corner kick. The ball sailed toward the U.S. net, but Kristine Lilly, standing just inches from the goal line, headed the ball away. The ball bounced dangerously in front of the U.S. net until Brandi Chastain booted it away.

No score. The teams played a second 15-minute overtime. Again, no goals. So the World Cup—just like the United’s big game against the Vipers—had to be decided on penalty kicks.

Just like Coach Hodges, Coach DiCicco had to decide which five players would take the all-important kicks. He chose these women for the crucial kicks:

Carla Overbeck.

Joy Fawcett.

Kristine Lilly.

Mia Hamm.

And Brandi Chastain.

Overbeck and Fawcett drilled their kicks into the net. But so did the first two Chinese
players. On the third Chinese kick, U.S. goalkeeper Briana Scurry leaped to her left and stretched her body out as far as she could. The ball glanced off her fingertips and away from the net.

No goal!

Kristine Lilly and Mia Hamm came through for their team by blasting their kicks into the net. But again, the Chinese players converted their penalty kicks. The score was 4–4 in penalty kicks. It was all up to Brandi Chastain.

She took a deep breath, stepped forward, and powered a shot into the back of the net.

The United States had won!

They won the World Cup because they were more than just a group of All-Stars. They were a real team.

Fred Bowen was a Little Leaguer who loved to read. Now he is the author of many action-packed books of sports fiction. He has also written a weekly sports column for kids in The
Washington Post
since 2000.

Fred played lots of sports growing up, including soccer at Marblehead High School. For thirteen years, he coached kids’ baseball, soccer, and basketball teams. Some of his stories spring directly from his coaching experience and his sports-happy childhood in Marblehead, Massachusetts.

Fred holds a degree in history from the University of Pennsylvania and a law degree from George Washington University. He was a lawyer for many years before retiring to become a full-time children’s author. Bowen has been a guest author at schools and conferences across the country, as well as the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, and The Baseball Hall of Fame.

Fred lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife Peggy Jackson. They have two grown children.

www.fredbowen.com

Much of the information about the 1999 United States Women’s World Cup soccer team comes from the book,
The Girls of Summer: The U.S. Women’s Soccer Team and How It Changed the World,
by Jere Longman (Harper Perennial, 2001). I also used the websites
www.wikipedia.com
and
www.fifa.com
.

I would also like to thank the following people for their help:

Colleen M. Hacker, Ph.D., Professor of Movement Studies and Wellness Education at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. Professor Hacker, who was a mental skills coach to the 1999 Women’s World Cup team, was kind enough to speak to me about the 1999 team and the team-building exercises that were so helpful in winning the World Cup.

Berkeley Williams, park manager at The Adventure Park at Sandy Spring Friends School in Sandy Spring, Maryland. Berkeley was nice enough to show me around The Adventure Park and explain what was going on in the treetops.