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 In 1967, a new professional sport came to the Atlanta area: the National Professional Soccer League. (The NPSL merged with the North American Soccer League in 1968.) Our region hosted the Atlanta Chiefs, brought to life by Dick Cecil and the Atlanta Braves organization.
The sport literally took off among youth, fed by new youth leagues organized throughout the area. The DeKalb County school system quickly added the sport to its athletic program; so quickly, in fact, that most teams were coached by men who had no experience with it.
Our Eagles team first took to the field (literally, the football practice field behind the school) when we were juniors, in 1968. Our teams enjoyed a lot of native, newly found talent and solid enthusiasm for the sport. It was somewhat unfortunate that they had to wear those uniforms (cotton T-shirt, shorts) in winter. Even a truly Southern winter can have its moments…
The 1968-1969 soccer season was really special. For one thing, it was the first season DeKalb County offered soccer. For another, it rescued me from wrestling.
I hadn’t played sports in Little League or anything like that; no one—including me—knew I was near-sighted until I was late into the 4th Grade at Columbia Elementary. By then, I was caught up in other activities, such as Scouts and my Atlanta Journal paper route. And, I’d developed a real taste for reading, too. (Heck, I could actually see the words, and the words spoke to me, and the words Spake: Read Me. So, I did.)
But, in the 10th Grade, I started moving out from behind the books. By the 11th Grade, I was out on the B-team football squad uder Coach Mueller. (I even dressed out for a couple of games and briefly—ever so briefly—got into the Avondale game.) The football coaches wanted all of us to go into wrestling during the winter, for obvious reasons: weight training, for one. But, working out down in the bowels of the gym was not a favorite of mine and…there was this new thing called Soccer.
Our soccer seasons were in winter in those days. I knew nothing about the sport, other than you weren’t supposed to use your hands or arms to handle the ball. And, you ran a lot. For some reason, in those days I loved to run. (Okay, I was a sick puppy. I’ve reformed since.) So, I ran and ran and ran and ran. I was set into the role of fullback (we used the old 5-3-2 alignment almost exclusively then), and I learned that I had an ability to dribble and pass the ball, I especially had an ability to attack the attacker and “tackle” the ball. My height (6' 2'' then) served in good stead when we defended against corner kicks.
 Mostly, I'm proud of the fact that I never scored a goal for an opposing team.
I really learned a lot from guys who had started out with county intramural leagues the year before. Our goalie, whose name only comes to me as his nickname, Molie the Goalie, was great. He was fearless and skilled and good with all of us, even those of us who were just learning. I wish I’d been able to keep up contact with him (he graduated in 1969, one of our first graduating class).
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