|
- Soccer Dads
As the Olympics get underway in Sydney, the U.S. women's soccer team is going for gold. Their husbands are going for diapers.
by Mike Woitalla
(9/8/00)
If you watched the U.S. women's soccer team winning the World Cup -- or if you didn't sleep through July of 1999 -- you remember Brandi Chastian whipping off her shirt off and flashing her sports bra. You saw captain Carla Overbeck hoisting the trophy, and passing it to defender Joy Fawcett and the rest of a team that captured the imagination of a nation as no other female team ever had.
But you didn't notice Greg Overbeck and Walter Fawcett. They're the dads who cared for their children while their moms became world famous.
The standard picture of the pro athlete's mate has come through TV images of well-dressed wives in the VIP section cheering or fretting about their husbands' heroics and failures. But the cameras didn't catch Greg Overbeck, because he was navigating a Rose Bowl filled with 90,000 fans in 100-degree heat, trying to steady their son, 2-year-old Jackson. Jackson had become skittish about big stadiums after being spooked by fireworks at the tournament's opening game in the Meadowlands.
"I'd take him out to the concourse when he got fidgety," Greg says. "It wasn't easy keeping him calm. But I wanted to make sure he was there for the historic event."
Greg had taken Jackson to games throughout the tournament. "Carrying my luggage, his luggage, catching plane and buses -- it was tough," Greg says, which maybe wasn't what he was thinking twelve years ago when Carla's face appeared on a TV screen at Squid's, one of the four North Carolina restaurants he owns. Then he exclaimed to a waitress:
"She could have my children!"
The waitress responded, "Oh god! She's my best friend and she wants to work here." Carla, no surprise, got the job. She resigned when they started dating.
In 1991, Greg accompanied Carla to China for the first Women's World Cup and served as the team cook. The USA won that tournament and Greg and Carla married in 1992. The birth of Jackson was timed to coincide with a slow period for the women's team. "Right after the 1996 Olympics we starting trying to get pregnant," he says. Carla, who returned to the field seven weeks after delivery, attends the team's live-in training camp, where a nanny helps her tend to Jackson for two-week stints in between Jackson's weeks with his father. "Since
I'm an owner," he says, "I have the freedom to concentrate on spending time with Jackson when he's with me. The fact that I'm with him all the time then, makes up for the periods he's at camp with Carla, although I miss him terribly."
Two weeks is the longest they family ever remains apart. When Jackson was a newborn, Greg gladly did late-night feedings, and not just because of Carla's early-morning practices.
"I loved getting up late at night," Greg says. "I loved giving him the bottle, and then having him fall asleep on my chest, feeling the breathing."
Joy Fawcett, like Carla, has won two World Cups and one Olympic gold medal. Unlike Greg Overbeck, Walter Fawcett waited until he actually met his future wife before bringing up the prospects of parenthood.
"Joy said we agreed on five children," says Walter. "I remember saying it was three. And now Joy claims she wants eight." So far, Walter and Joy have two daughters, Katelyn Rose (6) and Carli (3)
Walter, who has worked at IBM and was a vice president of AnySite Technologies, recently became an independent software consultant so he could work at home.
"I walked a way from a lot," Walter says. "But the move allows me to spend more time with the children and Joy."
He drops Katelyn off for kindergarten and scrambles to get work done before picking her up. And being married to a star has had its benefits.
"It's opened doors," he says. "Often people will ask me if I'm married to Joy. Then they want to spend more time talking about soccer than business. She's had an amazing effect. At IBM, after the gold medal win, they asked me if Joy could come by to meet people, and a huge crowd showed up."
That Walter easily took on parenting responsibilities came as no surprise to Joy. When they met at UC Berkeley, he worked as a nanny.
"I couldn't afford housing," he says. "For three years, I got room and board in exchange for helping to take care of three boys.
Both Greg and Walter grew up as athletes, but neither is old-fashioned enough to see a downside in partnering with women whose sporting exploits have eclipsed their own.
Far from it. "One time when we were short a man in our neighborhood basketball game," Walter says, "Joy played two-on-two, on my team. Joy never really played basketball, but from soccer she can sense where to go. We killed those guys!"
Their spouses' stardom has put extra demands on Greg and Walter, but Grey says it hasn't bothered him much.
"It's certainly not the same as a normal family where both parents work, and I wouldn't use the word 'sacrifice' in describing the demands. I obviously knew when I met Carla that soccer would be a big part of her life. We just didn't know how famous she would become and how big the pressure would be."
"As captain, Carla was under immense pressure," Greg continues, "It started before the tournament, and I took care Jackson from two weeks before kickoff. She handled it wonderfully and I got extra time with him."
When Walter met Joy, she too was in the midst of a serious soccer career.
"We were both aware of each others' career aspirations," Walter said, "and we both knew we could pursue them and meet the responsibilities of raising a family.
While Katelyn, the oldest, has been able to comprehend her Mom's achievements for awhile, Greg's ambitious quest to make Jackson part of the World Cup experience paid off. After taking the boy to games in New York, Chicago and Pasadena, he put the Jackson to bed on the night Mom took the title.
"He was half asleep," Greg says, "and started mumbling, 'Mommy kicks soccer balls. World Cup champion.'" This month, as the Olympics get under way in Australia, his soccer dad's hoping he learns the words "gold medal."
Mike Woitalla is the Executive Editor of Soccer America Magazine. He and his wife Holy Kernan live in Oakland with their 1-year old daughter Julia.
Content in DADMAG.com is meant to be distributed freely to interested parties. However, any excerpts from the stories in DADMAG.com must credit DADMAG.com. Copyright 2000, DADMAG.com, LLC. All rights reserved. Site Development - Andexler.com
|
|
|
