Thank you for being most proud of the important things.

My dad is not your typical travel soccer dad. He does not try to coach me from the sidelines, something I am always thankful for. When he comes to my games he watches, taking in the soccer, taking in the madness, taking in his daughter. I think he is proud just to see me on the field, to see me love what he taught me. He is always proud of me. He has no need to yell at me to play better. The field is enough for him.

I don't always hear my dad on the sidelines.

I run down the field, carefully dribbling the ball into the open space. A defender comes toward me, so I carefully pass it up into the open penalty box, where a forward springs to meet it.

It was a beautiful pass. My third one that day.

"Yeah!"

I heard my dad.

A lot was heard from him that day.In the car ride home, his voice was sweet and warm and proud along the farm roads. At home, my mom heard about my passes before I was out of the shower. On the phone with my brother, he'd heard about my nice plays before I'd gotten a chance to talk to him.

My dad was proud. So, so proud.

A few weeks earlier, I'd scored a goal. It was merely cleaning up a ball that had slipped out of the goalie's hands. My winning-oriented team had hugged me, overjoyed that I had tied the game up. My dad had clapped, happy for me, proud as always. But he wasn't this proud.

My dad is the kind of man who sees past the score. My dad is the kind of man who doesn't just want goals and winning and goals. My dad appreciates passes, doing the smarter albeit less glorious thing. He was proud to know I didn't dribble further to try to score the goal myself; I'd set up a teammate to have a much better chance to do so. He saw this because he would do the same thing.

Passing is a hard thing to do. It's not easy to let someone else take the glory, it's not easy to focus on scoring for your team and not you. But it's easier when you know there's going to be someone who appreciates the pass, too. Who appreciates it more.

Thank you for being most proud of the important things.