Featured, November 2019, NWSL, USWNT

Press Forward: How watching a grieving genius play soccer helped an Autism Dad grapple with his brokenness

Christen Press celebrates- and salutes her late Mom- after scoring against England in the World Cup semifinal.

Of all the places for me to finally shed tears over a sporting event, it’s a late season NWSL game where I break. I guess I just didn’t realize how much a splendid summer of soccer meant to me until the burn and ache of August, when I sat tucked high away in the corner of Orlando’s Exploria Stadium press box watching Christen Press glide effortlessly around a soccer field with tears in my eyes.

There’s a mental and physical grind to the late summer heat in Florida, a heaviness that wears and chips away at you with no chance of escape or respite. By August and September, you long for a rainy day, because at least you get a break from the all-consuming heat and humidity of Florida’s concrete convection oven.

It’s a challenge to compete in that heat, even for world class athletes like the women on the field, and it’s probably safe to suggest it makes keeping up with the maniacally blinding pace of Christen Press all the more difficult. On this Saturday night, with the gametime temperature lingering around 90 degrees, this turns out to be bad news for the Orlando Pride. 

As for me, the tears come in the 15th minute, when Press latches onto a ball in her own half and eviscerates the Orlando Pride’s defenses, besting five players all while appearing as if she were floating. 

It’s one of those runs that makes soccer so captivating, a “why we watch” magic spell moment where the continuum between time and space seems to cease and all that’s left is the musicality of a player’s movement. The crowd noise fades and the soccer symphony crescendos and we’re all just suspended in the ether until Press’s slicing shot is saved well by Ashlyn Harris, Orlando’s goalkeeper and Press’s USWNT teammate.

Then the noise returns and the tears swell and for a moment, I’m stunned by the injustice the run didn’t produce a goal.  Briefly, with a lump in my throat, I look around the press box to see if others are as captivated by the play as I am. A few seats down from me, I hear Julia Poe, the wonderful young soccer writer from the Orlando Sentinel, marvel “Christen Press; What a Run!” which is right, and assures me I did in fact see magic. Relieved, I bite my tongue and manage to hide my tears  until I look down into the stands and see a dad in a pride shirt and a young girl in a USWNT Press jersey holding his hand, using her free arm to point at Press. 

A week prior I was that dad and his little girl, watching my beloved Atlanta Braves with my oldest Mila, who wore a soccer jersey (her favorite, Rose Lavelle) on daddy-daughter date night to a baseball game. I see that dad and suddenly,  I see myself, sharing life or soccer or sports with my own daughters. That’s when the tears flow like a spring river and I’m reaching for a press box napkin to use as a tissue, completely and ridiculously vulnerable.

Five minutes later, Press is at it again. 

This time, she’s darting from the flank into the zone 14 area we soccer tactics nerds love to write about where she settles herself, takes a divine touch and dekes two Orlando defenders- right then left- before pumping an inch-perfect cross to an onrushing Katie Stengel. Stengel, playing just an hour’s drive from her hometown of Melbourne, Florida, is denied a happy homecoming when she mishits her effort; she’s denied again in the 25th minute when Press plays another sensational ball across and Stengel is beat to it thanks to a sensational clearing effort by Orlando’s Shelina Zadorsky. 

The ten minute sequence is a master class from Press, a futbolista at the height of powers, bedeviling and surgically dissecting an opponent mostly helpless in its attempts to stop her. Eventually, she will score what turns out to be the winning goal on a sweeping volley from a confounding angle.  We are bearing witness to greatness. 

And in my case, crying in public.

“An autism diagnosis will not reset your love; it can reset your expectations”

I see myself in that dad but also, I’m watching and thinking of my youngest daughter Elizabeth, who is four.

When Elizabeth was two, she was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. 

The process happened quickly, a cascading sequence of events that as a parents, struck quickly and never let us up for air.

For the first year-plus of her life, Elizabeth, who we call “Lizzie,” met every development milestone and delighted in every discovery, especially our family dog, Atticus, and food, from squash to smash cake. 

My oldest, Mila, is a mommy’s girl if ever there was one. “Mommy” is the first person Mila talks to in the morning and the last person she wants to see at night. They are thick as thieves.

Despite being premature, Elizabeth’s first year saw her a curious baby who met every development milestone.

For whatever reason, as the baby in the family, Lizzie and I have always had a special bond. 

She was born prematurely and for her first six months, had horrific colic; she would scream and scream and I would soothe, often walking around with her for hours at a time until she fell asleep in my arms. 

At 16 months, Lizzie and I took in our first soccer game together- a US win at the Copa América Centenario– with her smiling at me and saying “Look at soccer” at the television and me, not containing my glee, whispering “Look at soccer” back– basically any soccer writer’s selfish dad dream.

At 18 months, Lizzie would greet me in the driveway when I came home from work (my day job, as an attorney). “Daddy, it’s so nice to see you,” she said from her Mommy’s arms one autumn night in 2016, much to our delight.

Six months later, most of her words were gone. 

On some days, she stopped responding to her name. She rarely made eye contact. She was far less joyful and curious and seemed stuck in her own world and space.

We asked her pediatrician, who wrote it off as a speech delay. He blamed a history of frequent ear infections and told us she would “grow out of it.”

We were skeptical, but wanted to believe it was just a bump in the developmental road.

It wasn’t.

Lizzie’s PK2 teacher, a saintly young mother in her own right with a masters in early childhood education, had studied autism in graduate school. She didn’t think it was a normal delay, and at a conference, told Lizzie’s mother and I that Lizzie had warning flags for autism. She was withdrawn at school, limited in peer-to-peer interaction. She retreated to her own space during classroom activities, rocked back and forth when upset and preferred to cuddle on grown-ups while other children played. The teacher encouraged a behavior evaluation of Lizzie, just to be sure.

In late  2017, just before Christmas, a school board psychiatrist told us Lizzie’s evaluation, which took an excruciating four hours, confirmed her teacher’s suspicion. LIzzie displayed multiple indicators for autism. A few months later, we received a formal diagnosis from a pediatric neurologist. 

“An autism diagnosis will not reset your love,” I remember the neurologist saying. “It can reset your expectations of being a Mom or Dad.”

*** *** ***

As a parent, an autism diagnosis is devastating. 

Often times, education can help ease the pain of a diagnosis. I found the opposite to be true with autism. The more I learned, the greater I felt a sense of helplessness, confusion and fear.

Children with autism are 63 percent more likely to be bullying victims. Nearly one-third of children with autism engage in self-injurious behaviors and they are 100x more likely than neurotypical children to suffer accidental death. They are often socially isolated, typically relegated to separate classrooms for most of the school day. One in five American children with autism will have a negative run in with the police due to their neurodiversity by age 18. One in three children with autism suffers from depression, and as children with autism become adults, they are 7x more likely to die by suicide due to depression. 

The sadness of your child facing these types of odds in life is almost unbearable. 

Lizzie doesn’t seem sad. She plays with toys, is imaginative, loves to paint. She is withdrawn in social situations, but blooms like a rose around her older sister, Mila, the one person she will always want to play with. Neurologists now understand that in some brains of people with autism, there is often a circuitous loop of misfiring but creative synapses, and Lizzie often demonstrates this, building elaborate Lego towers or finishing colorful paintings.

But statistics are statistics.

And, as recently told in  Naoki Higashida’s enlightening book, The Reason I Jump, for children with autism, social engagement is far more painful than the dull ache of exclusion. Life then can be purposefully lonely and solitary.

What will it mean for Lizzie to lead a solitary, lonely life? What will she be able to achieve? What should my expectations for her be? What should my dreams for her be? Will she have dreams and ambitions? How can I nurture them?

As a parent, you always navigate a fine line between encouraging the natural explorations of youth, the need for your child to find their own way  and the nurturing, parental desire to, as best as possible, protect your child from the world. 

With my older daughter, who is neurotypical, life is about the next softball game, dance recital and what I’d imagine are standard father dreams she’ll go to Emory or Duke or somewhere incredible- or even just want to be a Florida Gator like me.

For Elizabeth, an epic day is the first time she said I love you to me– July 10, 2018. It’s 30 hours of therapy a week and a Dad who is financially and emotionally strapped working multiple jobs to pay therapy bills just hoping one day she might have a job and an apartment of her own. 

An autism diagnosis reorients the traditional journey of fatherhood away from balance and toward a reptilian impulse where if you aren’t careful, the question of “how do I protect her?” becomes all-consuming. 

I find myself now battling a series of emotions almost daily. On the one hand, I have immense gratitude. Autism is a condition, a  type of neurodiversity; it is not a disease. While autism does increase mortality risks collaterally, it will never be the sole reason my child is taken from me. For that I feel gratitude, and I know there are other, braver parents, like pediatric cancer parents, who have it much worse and face larger, more painful existential questions.

On the other hand, my own sadness is sometimes too hard to navigate. 

What is the human cost of knowing the odds are in favor of Lizzie’s perpetual loneliness? Am I a good enough man to be not only her dad, but one of her only friends? Is there a line between celebrating her difference and coddling her? Am I doing enough to cultivate joy? 

And the worst question, the one that buzzes and drones around my brain in the wee hours of morning, on warm summer walks into soccer stadiums and until just before I close my eyes at night: What happens with Lizzie if something happens to me?

Long an immense technical talent, Press constantly faced questions about her role and where she best fit in, questions that frequently apply to young girls with autism as well.

How do I fit in? What am I best at? 

Press has always had prodigious talents, a highly technical player from a federation long believed (with little justice) to just “out-athlete” their opponents to death.

That narrative has never really fit Press. 

She’s plenty athletic, to be sure– generating blistering pace from her self-described “skinny old legs.” But she’s always been a profoundly technical soccer player, one that can run right by you but one that can dribble around you too, a whirlwind of grace and guile. 

“It isn’t just that she’s so fast,” her Utah Royals and USWNT teammate Becky Sauerbrunn told me this summer. “She’s a master dribbler, a strong passer, a person who reads the game so well. She’s one of the most technical players in the world.”

Shelina Zadorsky has spent a few years now chasing Press around lush green fields, whether in the NWSL or with the Canadian National Team, a fierce USWNT rival. 

“She is a the ultimate technician,” Zadorsky tells me after Press and the Royals have narrowly defeated her Pride. “She can split the center of a defense with pace and can run by you. She’s splendid off the ball– she can dash into space from the channel or figure out where you aren’t and float there. It takes so much discipline to defend her.”

Press has spent much of her career in the shadows of more famous giants– Abby Wambach, Alex Morgan, Carli Lloyd, Megan Rapinoe. But she’s never had to stand on their shoulders. It’s never been about a lack of ability with Press, who has long been one of the most captivating American soccer talents.

A decorated player that won the Hermann Trophy as the nation’s top collegiate player at Stanford, the expectation of brilliance has followed Press forever. 

She’s played great soccer, earning Rookie of the Year honors in the now-defunct Women’s Professional Soccer league and helping little-known Tyresö in Sweden to a Champions League Final as a young professional shortly thereafter. But for much of the decade, Press piled up national team caps but grappled and struggled with finding and being comfortable in a national team role.

In fact, this struggle to find a defining and comfortable role is to some extent a product of just how good Press can be. Press is a rare player, one so profoundly competent at most everything that her various coaches sometimes convince themselves she can do anything. 

That technical ability and versatility is part of the reason Press has “quietly” amassed 126 caps and 49 goals without ever being one of the USWNT’s big stars or put her name in sharpie attacking starters. 

“Finding her a role has been her biggest challenge professionally. What is the right role? Where is she her best? Where does she help the team the best? Is it on the wing? Is it pushing that back line as the number 9? Is it both?  I think that’s fair,” Jill Ellis said this summer ahead of the World Cup. 

It’s different for girls, and the world can be cruel

How will she fit in? How will she become the best version of herself?  What drives her?

In a way, it’s staggering these questions surround someone as gifted as Christen Press. But as an autism parent, I’m consumed by such questions.

Autism is a spectrum disorder, which is to say that it has a wide range of impacts that vary from patient to patient. A person can’t “look autistic” and no case is truly the same. 

No one knows precisely what happens inside the brain of a person with autism either,  though without question there is a constellation of core behavioral symptoms, notably social difficulty, fixated interests, obsessive behaviors and unusually intense or dulled reactions to sensory stimulation– that tend to appear in people with autism across the spectrum and helps with diagnosis.

Autism is far more common in boys than girls. 

The most recent statistics show that 1 in 59 children is on the autism spectrum, but only one in 151 girls. Research suggests some (but hardly all) of this diagnostic disparity is related to underdiagnosis, as girls seem to frequently mask symptoms a bit more than boys. 

No studies demonstrate why autism is more prevalent in boys than girls. 

In fact, in keeping with an autism theme, no one really knows what causes autism, though hundreds of peer-reviewed studies show it isn’t caused by vaccines. Nor is it caused by cold mothers or the birth of a person lacking a soul, as has been suggested in previous literature.

Autism is considered a lifelong developmental disorder, and little girls with autism grow up to become women with autism. While there are shared behavioral indicators across the spectrum, there are specific risks to girls with autism that keep Autism Dads- a label I’ve proudly adjusted to over the last couple years- awake at night.

Women with an autism diagnosis are three times more likely to be victims of sexual abuse or rape. Girls with autism are 2x more likely to be depressed and 25% more likely to have self-image issues and suffer from an eating disorder. The combination of sensory issues, self-image concerns and social awkwardness makes it very difficult for young women with autism to make friends. One of the endless studies I read notes that as many as 9 of 10 girls with autism report having “no friends.”

Finding or holding a steady job is equally challenging. 

The unemployment rate for adults with autism varies and is improving, but according to a study at Drexel, the unemployment rate for adults in their 20s with autism currently sits at about 42%. According to Autism Speaks, the underemployment rate is much higher, as high as 90%. For girls, the adult unemployment rate is around 50%, a bit higher.

Despite these ominous numbers, we’ve found rays of hope.

Disney films have helped reclaim and expand Lizzie’s vocabularly, and a recent day trip to Disney World was a special delight.

Some parents make horrified memes about watching the same Disney movies again and again. For us, repeated viewings of Frozen and Moana are ways to see her express joy and expand her vocabulary in the process. After one viewing of Frozen, Lizzie walked up to her big sister and gave her a kiss, saying “I love you Mila.” I’d watch Anna save Elsa 100 more times to feel that type of happiness again.

Lizzie is only four, but there are indicators of interests and talent revealing themselves.

She is highly attentive to detail and enjoys music and art. She explodes with joy around animals, from her two dogs to a chance to feed giraffes at Zoo Miami. She’s strong and athletic, participating in an advanced gymnastics class for kindergarteners and first graders despite being in PK4. 

How do I channel her passions? Will they help her build and sustain friendships? How do I extend her support structure to cultivate her emerging talents?

The hope of these moments can be crushed by the cruelty of others.

One such day happened just before I saw Press in Orlando.

Like most women in my family and extended family, Lizzie loves Target. “Let’s Go Target, let’s go red”, she’ll say.

One Saturday afternoon this summer, just before school started, Lizzie was at Target with her mother and sister when she became overwhelmed by the crowd and had a sensory meltdown. A woman in a nearby aisle told Lizzie’s Mommy to “Get her child under control.” 

“She is under control,” her mother said. “She has autism, and she’s overwhelmed by the crowd.” The woman glared, and repeated “Get her under control.” 

Moments later, Lizzie’s Mom and the girls found themselves being tracked down in the parking lot by the woman with the cell phone. Lizzie was still screaming.

“She doesn’t look autistic,” the woman said to Lizzie’s mother. “She looks spoiled. She looks like she needs to learn to be quiet.” 

That type of overt cruelty is rare but judgmental glares are not. It’s easier to assume children with autism have a “look”, or a sensory meltdown is just a run-of-the-mill temper tantrum than to inquire, learn, reserve judgment and try understanding. 

I put up a brave front, but there are mornings and moments where I feel broken.

Self-doubt dominates. The world feels constricted. My margin for error is zero and there is no room to fail and learn. There is only tomorrow, and there are plenty of evenings where I go to bed wondering if I’ll be good enough to get through that.

From grief, bravery and brilliance

The wonderful thing about genius in soccer is you know it when you see it. 

Watch an old grainy video of Garrincha or Cruyff and Ajax vs. Bayern in 1973 and you’ll see what I mean. Zidane against Brazil in Paris in 1998. Leo Messi in the 2015 Champions League. Ryan Giggs vs. Arsenal in the 1999 FA Cup.. Carli Lloyd against Japan in the World Cup Final. Marta at the Dragon Stadium in 2007. 

Genius in soccer is an observational experiment.

It bends angles, buzzes in and out of passing lanes, torpedoes into tackles, perfectly weights passes, explodes and thunders goals into being out of nothingness. 

In a year where Megan Rapinoe was named the FIFA Women’s Player of the Year, Christen Press- with a nod to the brilliant young Rose Lavelle- has perhaps been the American player who has been the true genius.

Press’s year of genius started in early January, when playing a World Cup tuneup against Spain, she scored one of the most exquisite goals you’ll ever see—on a run that in many ways mirrored the gallop from her own half I witnessed in Orlando.

Press’s mother Stacy died of cancer the following day, which would have crushed the soul of most any reasonable human and far less importantly, understandably ruined their soccer. Press’s sorrow and grief remains open and raw, but it is something she’s worn with uncanny grace and brave honesty.

After she scored her now famous goal in the World Cup semifinal against England, Press was quick to point to the sky, acknowledging she was “thinking of her mom.” 

Press has grieved privately like we all do; she’s also grieved openly in ways many of us aren’t equipped to do, all while navigating her ever-increasing fame and the pressures of a World Cup year with the US Women’s national team. Frequent Instagram tributes to her late mother and a willingness to talk to the media about staying true to herself through her sorrow have been inspiring.

 

 

Maybe soccer has given Press a release, a way to navigate grief without fixating on it. 

Maybe Press, a curious and deep thinker and someone always seeking to improve herself, is just more content with who she is on a soccer field. Perhaps it is a combination of all those things. 

It hasn’t always been that way.

“I think in my career, there have been times where I was a bit broken,” Press told me at US media day just before the Americans left for France this summer.

“When I arrived in Sweden was one of those times. I felt like any time I lost I let my whole team down, I let my whole school down. At Stanford, we lost twice in the final. The weight of that was crushing me. Couple that with trying to make the national team, never being called in-all the frustration was too much,” Press said. “So I’ve had frustrations professionally where my perspective was muddled.”

At the Olympics, Press missed the decisive penalty that sent the Americans home before the medal rounds. Several US players said Rio motivated them. For Press, it was a dark moment.

“You don’t forget the taste in your mouth when you fail,” Press said. “For me, it was difficult. But I think it drove us, even as expectations with this team are always to win and be the best.”

Whatever the driving factors, 2019 has offered some of the best soccer of Press’s life. 

A defined role has helped. 

By the end of 2018, Ellis was using Press primarily as the first attacking option off the bench, whether she was playing as a winger or as a number nine. 

After 100+ caps, it was challenging for Press to accept not being a permanent starting eleven player. It would have been human- rational even- to feel a bit resentful. But Press embraced the role, wearing it well for the US both ahead of and in France. 

“At first, coming off the bench, not knowing if I was playing wing or forward, it was challenging,” Press said. “I didn’t think that was where I was going to be able to show my best. I didn’t realize or appreciate that every role on a team is so unique. You could be a 9 one US team and play a different formation on another team and it’s a different job. I really felt like I had mastered the 9 in Sweden, and I had worked so hard to master it, that it was a little sad for me to let it go. But what I’ve learned (with Jill), and what’s helped me prepare myself for this World Cup mentally  is that I have a whole bag of tools, and I have all these strengths, and while maybe I’ll have to put a different combination together, but I am capable and am the same player and I can do the same things to impact winning as a substitute, regardless of the spot on the field.”

Perhaps, in a tumultuous and difficult year, there was a simple comfort in knowing that at least on a soccer field, she understood what was being asked of her and how she fit. 

France’s Amandine Henry, one of the world’s greatest midfielders, credits Press’s technical ability when considering how she so easily adapted to this role.

“She’s unique, especially on that team because she’s a pure playmaker, but also one of the best at attacking space in the box,” Henry told me this summer. “That means you can put her in a variety of places to try to maximize how well she plays in space.” 

Press’s mindset and preparation all came to head in the World Cup semifinal, when she was thrust into a starting role due to the late injury to Rapinoe, her teammate and dear friend.

This time, in a game many felt the US would lose, Press was ready. 

Floating in space just beyond the England defense, far enough away to not feel too threatening, Press seized her moment with a late flashing run towards the far post, then buried the header to give the Americans an early lead.

When it was over, Press reached to the sky.

“I was thinking of my mom,” she would tell SI’s Grant Wahl thereafter. 

Days later, though she didn’t start, Press was on the field in the World Cup final in Lyon when the United States secured their fourth World Cup against the Netherlands. As the confetti rained down and the Americans celebrated, a beaming Press hugged teammates and waved to adoring fans, constantly looking skyward.

It was a moment I’m sure she’d have wanted to share with her mom. She couldn’t, but she bravely made the most of it. 

There is rarely grace in grief. There doesn’t need to be. Grief is hard and messy and fragmented and the answers aren’t ever easy. There’s no shame in sadness. It’s okay to not be okay.

But in Christen Press, we’ve seen grace and genius through grief, an important lesson for a Dad still grappling with how to best be there for his youngest daughter.

Watching Christen Press in 2019, I was reminded it’s okay to not be okay.
And it’s never too late to find heroes, even among our contemporaries.

A shared humanity: why we love sports

Christen Press’s story is why I love sports: there’s a shared humanity involved that resonates, whether it is a singular moment, a sense of parochial pride and allegiance to the crooks and crannies we call home, or an athlete’s story. 

The USWNT embodies what is best in sport: competitive excellence but also, a boundless commitment to equality and justice off the playing field. On a team with plenty of heroes well-suited to lead in this contemporary moment: how does one choose a specific hero or champion?

I choose Christen Press’s grace and courage because it resonates. 

I grew up going to college football games with my dad, who cultivated my love of sports and writing and learning. 

He worked (and still works) constantly but always made time for Saturdays in the fall. I remember we’d drive to Gainesville, first from Atlanta and then from Jupiter, the sleepy beach town we moved to when I was in high school, and he’d tell me stories: about games from the past, the greatest players he ever saw, and most of all, about life. 

One bit of advice I’ve kept with me is his reminder that humans have the capacity to do incredible things, especially when the odds seem stacked against them.

“Adversity is inevitable,” he’d tell me. “Responding to it can be an opportunity.”

It’s a piece of advice I’ve taken with me as a dad, and one that resonates with me when I watch sports. 

It’s one that I see when I watch Christen Press.

A World Cup comes with immense pressure, but for the USWNT, the pressure is two-fold. 

First, there’s the expectations: anything but victory is a failure. For much of a USWNT four-year World Cup cycle, anything but decisive victory is cause for criticism and panic. No  one suffers winning more than US Women’s National Team fans. 

Second, most every Women’s World Cup wrongly becomes a referendum on the sport. Are the television ratings high enough? Are the games entertaining? Will corporate sponsors invest? The USWNT play not for themselves or even their country, but for an entire women’s soccer culture at home. 

I hope one day soon this isn’t the case. 

For now, though, it is, and as I finish this final section of this piece, I’m struck by the bravery of Press, playing through both this type of pressure while simultaneously grieving the loss of her mother and best friend.

For Press, her exceptional year on the field continued after she came home a two-time World Cup champion.

Though her NWSL team, the Utah Royals, missed the postseason, Press was arguably the best player in the league since returning from France, winning NWSL Player of the Month honors in August and doing everything in her power to rescue Utah’s season in September. 

On the last Saturday in September, as she floated from space just beyond the reach of the CBs to score this goal against Chicago, it was hard not to think of that moment this summer against England: Press, a champion at her pinnacle, diagnosing and attacking space.

All the while, both on the field and off it, Press has honored and remembered her mother, the woman who drove her to all those practices, cultivating a love of learning and soccer along the way.

Watching Christen Press in 2019, I was reminded it’s okay to feel broken, and it’s never too late to find heroes, even among our contemporaries.

She won’t be alone

As a longtime American soccer writer,  I’ve seen Press and the USWNT play at least 25 times in person, including at World Cups and She Believes Cups and plenty of friendlies in between, and for that I feel blessed beyond measure. I’ve covered three World Cups, and seen matches in some of the beautiful game’s most sacred cathedrals: The Maracanã, Le Parc des Princes, Estadio Azteca. 

Sometimes I still steal a glance and beam at the credentials bearing my name,  just to make sure it’s all real. 

But until that August night in Orlando, I’d never shed tears at a sporting event. I’d never experienced cathartic grief watching an athlete who by age is my contemporary and determined I could channel it and be inspired by it. 

In truth, since Lizzie’s autism diagnosis, I’ve written less frequently about soccer.

When I went to law school, I never wanted to be a 15-hour a day attorney who forgot about the joy he found in writing. Trained as a writer at the University of Florida, I knew I wanted to write stories about sports, even if it wasn’t a full time thing. I also  knew I wanted to be a dad, and for all the wonderful things I learned and support I received from my dad, I knew I wanted to be around a little more than he was when I was a kid. 

I wanted to be at every parent-teacher conference, at as many dance recitals and theatre classes and  softball and soccer practices as I could. Even now, I want to pack lunches and read bedtime stories and take the girls to see their Nana in Atlanta every summer and teach them about dogwood trees and how to grill with a Big Green Egg.

For a while before Lizzie’s diagnosis, I was that dad.

I practiced criminal defense and civil rights law and was a zealous advocate for my clients, for voting rights, prison conditions rights-  but I was motivated and animated by my legal work, not consumed by it.

As a release, I started a soccer blog with one of my best friends from college and it became The Yanks Are Coming, which for ten years has been a place where people can come for what we hope is smart, fair American soccer analysis and storytelling. 

We took pride in the work we did and in doing our part to grow American soccer culture. We enjoyed the feedback we got from the full-time writers, many of whom invited us on their podcasts or took a moment to tell us they were a fan. 

Against basically the advice of everyone, I’ve never made a cent off TYAC, ten years of writing for free: a labor of love.

But in a competitive business, I’ve made some deep and lasting friendships and tried to always be kind, regardless of whether it’s reciprocated. It isn’t always easy. I’ve been pushed to be better and grow as a writer by those who I admire and think are better, but I’ve also been hurt when I haven’t been asked to write for money and those I think I’m better than were praised or hired. 

Since Lizzie’s autism diagnosis, much of the time for writing, and most the space for personal envy or bitterness has melted away.

A year ago, I got an email from one of my favorite writers, Wright Thompson, who told me he loved my soccer writing and he’d like to swap stories and ideas. That was a thrill, and inspired me to keep grinding. I framed the email and wrote what I thought were some terrific stories about the 2018 FIFA Men’s World Cup, including one about my other favorite soccer player, N’Golo Kanté of Chelsea and France. 

But save the Women’s World Cup, I haven’t been able to write about soccer much otherwise.

Now, I commute 90 minutes to work, where I labor as a civil litigation attorney before making the trek home to continue working as a journalist, writing about college football and basketball for money. On some nights, I pick Lizzie up from therapy and in between, make the kids dinner, put them to bed and finally sit down to write. 

I mostly do paid work now because even with what most would call “great insurance” and our collective and fair salaries, the costs of speech therapy and ABA Therapy and student loan repayments and life are overwhelming. 

I tried to sell this piece for three months. Deadspin bit, but then there was no more Deadspin, so it was back to the drawing board. I’m a capable storyteller, but it turns out there’s not a ravenous audience for magazine-length stories about women’s soccer, autism and modern fatherhood.

In truth, I’d love to write about soccer more. Being Lizzie’s Daddy has made me a smarter, more self-aware writer than I’ve ever been and one with a unique voice. We’ll see what tomorrow brings. Maybe I’ll get the chance.

Or maybe I won’t, and the reason this sensational summer of soccer meant so much is because I entered it searching and broken, and left it with an unlikely hero. 

Maybe, as Alex Morgan might say, that’s the tea.

*** *** *** 

Donning a jersey of a hero, I manage an epic picture with Lizzie at Epcot this November.

Speaking of finding heroes, Lizzie’s will be mine this holiday season.

For 20 grueling hours a week, Lizzie participates in applied behavioral analysis, or A.B.A., therapy. A.B.A. helps break down the quotidian actions most of us take for granted (getting dressed, washing hands, responding to the question “How are you?”, looking both ways to cross the street) into tiny, traceable and learnable steps, acquired through memorization and endless repetition. 

Considered controversial science less than two decades ago, there are now hundreds of peer-reviewed studies that show that with enough hours of one-on-one A.BA. therapy, children with autism can improve using a highly structured regimen of prompts and rewards to reinforce certain socially integrating behaviors and eliminate maladaptive ones. 

Elizabeth and her two primary therapists, Jessica and Stephany, have made remarkable progress in just 18 months together. Elizabeth’s language is expanding, her eye contact is improving, she will dress herself willingly in the morning and she is beginning to participate in classroom group activities at school.

A.B.A. is buttressed by hours of speech therapy, where Lizzie’s words, slowly and steadily, are not only returning but rapidly expanding. 

I’m struck by her bravery and resolve. Her days begin at 6:00 AM when she gets dressed for school and most nights, her work doesn’t end until 7 PM. 

To do that at four-years old, under an ever increasing and expanding set of demands, is astonishing.

To do it in a world that doesn’t understand autism and too often remains cold and cruel is inspiring. 

During that semifinal against England this summer, I sat at home with Lizzie, who was taking a well-earned day off from therapy. With the US leading 2-1, Lizzie put down her artwork and came to the couch to snuggle with me, one of her favorite activities. I pointed at the game and the score and smiled at her.

To my astonishment, she looked up, pointed at the TV, and said “Let’s watch soccer, Daddy.”

A couple months after watching Christen Press play soccer in Orlando, Lizzie powered through a family trip to Disney World, asking “to go car, please” when she was overwhelmed and wearing Minnie Mouse ears every moment in between. A trip to Disney is something a neurotypical family may not find terribly complicated; for an autism family, a day at Disney without a sensory meltdown is plenty magical. 

At a time I needed reminding, Christen Press showed me this summer through her soccer that we carry on, bravely, with as much grace as we can. 

Humans, as Elizabeth constantly reminds me, have the capacity to do incredible things.

So we press on and forward, broken but not beaten,  gamely, to meet the challenges life brings, one at a time.

And for as long as I’m able, Elizabeth will never take on hers alone.

Neil W. Blackmon co-founded The Yanks Are Coming. An attorney and journalist based in Fort Lauderdale, you can follow him on Twitter @nwblackmon.

Written by: Neil W. Blackmon on November 29, 2019.
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