My First Soccer Coach was…Godzooky?

By: Sean | October 5th, 2008

I did not grow up in a soccer household.

I don’t believe that any of my relatives had ever played the game. I don’t recall the neighbors ever kicking the ball around the cul-de-sac until the wee hours of the evening. I’m sure that some of my elementary school friends probably played on a youth soccer team, but I don’t recall being awed by the uniforms they wore to class in the same way I was when the Cub Scouts got to wear their crisp navy and golds (complete with patches and badges!) on meeting days. My introduction–and subsequent obsession with–the Beautiful Game goes something like this:

1976. I have this image of me sitting about four feet in front of a television, bathed in the dancing light of Saturday morning cartoons. My dad enters the darkened living room with a flyer and asks, “Sean, would you like to play on a soccer team this fall? They have a league for first graders.” I shake my head, still transfixed by the images before me. “No, Daddy. There are too many good cartoons on Saturday mornings.”

1977. I have a nearly identical image of me sitting in front of a television, still bathed in the dancing light of Saturday morning cartoons. My dad again enters the same darkened living room with a flyer and asks, “Sean, would you like to play on a soccer team this fall? They have practices and games.” I shake my head again, still mesmerized by the images before me. “No, Daddy. There are too many good cartoons on Saturday mornings.”

1978. Again, I remember sitting in front of a television, too close for my own good in a darkened living room. I have this image of my dad coming in and asking if I wanted to play soccer with other kids in my grade. You would suspect my answer would have been the same as before, but something had changed. In front of me, blaring in triumphant, almost militant orchestral tones, was the theme song to “The Godzilla Power Hour.” This Saturday morning cartoon extravaganza featured a giant dinosaur that breathed fire and shot lasers from his eyes! What more could an eight year old boy want? I can still hear the theme song: “GOD-zilla! (Duh duh duh!) GOD-zilla! (Duh duh duh!)–” And then it changed. It all became so very wrong. The heroic chords changed into this awful, almost circus-like ditty, followed by the lyrics that would change my life for the next thirty years: “And God-zook-y… (dah dah dah dah dah dah, etc.)” Suddenly, this dopey green lizard suddenly appeared and started flapping haplessly around the screen. He couldn’t breathe fire, just lame clouds of smoke! What good was this in fighting enemy monsters and giant robots?! Apparently, Godzilla needed an idiot nephew to screw things up and bark like a dog! It seemed that his only redeeming trait was his ability to summon Godzilla to extricate himself from whatever bumbling zaniness he had caused. Even to a trusting, naive, cartoon-loving suburban third grader, this was too much to bear. I imagine myself sitting there, jaw slightly open, eyes wide in disbelief as I watch Puff the Tragic Dragon kill off a small part of my childhood.

“Sean, you probably don’t want to play soccer this season, do you?” I hear my dad ask.

“I do want to play soccer, Daddy!” I proclaim. “There are no good cartoons on this year!”

And so it began. I do not remember buying my first pair of soccer cleats. I do not remember my first toe-punch, my first pass, nor my first glorious post-match orange slice snack. But I definitely remember the moment that I turned off the television and signed up for my local youth soccer team…and I never looked back. Godzooky wasn’t the last time a ridiculous and completely unnecessary sidekick ruined a perfectly good franchise (see also Scrappy Doo, Jar Jar Binks, and the entire cast of “Galactica 1980″) but even in his ineptitude, Coach G taught me two basic lessons about soccer:

1. Just get out and play! Such a simple directive, but so very powerful. If you are reading this blog, I suspect you know all about this already.

2. If you ever get yourself into trouble on the pitch, you can always count on your big, fire breathing, laser eyeball shooting, bad-ass enforcer of a central defender to come bail you out.

How about you, Weekend Warriors? How did you come to find yourself involved in the Beautiful Game? I suspect many of you grew up with a proper football next to the crib, but I would love to hear your stories. Cheers!