Soccer Dad: A Father, a Son, and a Magic Season (Hardcover)

by W. D. Wetherell (Author)
Key Phrases: travel team, New Hampshire, Hanover High, Angus Kennedy (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Wetherell's son Matt is a starter for a Hanover, N.H., high school soccer team, which is seeking its third straight state championship, and he details the season's ups and downs, while describing the culture surrounding competitive youth soccer and saying good-bye to his son's childhood. Wetherell (Chekov's Sister; Morning) writes with energy and light humor, but he tries to cover so much territory that the narrative lapses into disorganization and unanswered questions. The account feels like a collection of short essays linked tangentially by Matt, whose challenging senior year isn't well integrated into Wetherell's musings on soccer parents or the grueling life of a teenage soccer star. Wetherell also indulges in sweeping, hero-making prose regarding soccer and Matt's team, which has the opposite effect of its intent (cleats on the bass line that supplies the game's rhythm—always there, hardly noticed, absolutely core). Still, Wetherell's astute observations on soccer and the accompanying lifestyle plus his passion as a parent contribute to an often informative read. (Sept.) ""
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Review
“Wetherell is a passionate writer who has a sharp, fresh eye.”
(The New York Times )

Wetherell's son Matt is a starter for a Hanover, N.H., high school soccer team, which is seeking its third straight state championship, and he details the season's ups and downs, while describing the culture surrounding competitive youth soccer and saying good-bye to his son's childhood. Wetherell (Chekov's Sister; Morning) writes with energy and light humor, but he tries to cover so much territory that the narrative lapses into disorganization and unanswered questions. The account feels like a collection of short essays linked tangentially by Matt, whose challenging senior year isn't well integrated into Wetherell's musings on soccer parents or the grueling life of a teenage soccer star. Wetherell also indulges in sweeping, hero-making prose regarding soccer and Matt's team, which has the opposite effect of its intent (cleats on the bass line that supplies the game's rhythm—always there, hardly noticed, absolutely core). Still, Wetherell's astute observations on soccer and the accompanying lifestyle plus his passion as a parent contribute to an often informative read. (Publishers Weekly )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing (September 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 160239329X
• ISBN-13: 978-1602393295
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #535,067 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars I can relate (even though I'm a soccer mom), March 21, 2009

By	Lori (Michigan) - See all my reviews

My husband and I could relate to this book on many levels. Our children are much younger than his son but, as this author retells stories of his boy growing up in soccer and his passion for the sport, we could have inserted ourselves into the pages of this book. Wetherell's casual style of writing was enjoyable, although at times it seemed a bit wordy and off topic (a few small tangents I could have done without). Overall, it was an enjoyable read. I chuckled out loud more than a few times and even shed a tear when I could relate so personally. Wetherell draws you into his family and into himself in such a way that any sports parent could relate.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Read, January 22, 2009

By	John Yeigh (Annapolis) - See all my reviews

This is a must read for any soccer Dad or Mom. It goes through all the trials and tribulations of being a soccer parent in a humorous way. There are also many interesting observations about the sport of soccer.

It would also be good read for many parents that have endured long seasons as a baseball, football, or basketball dad or mom - the impact on the parents is the same. The story is well written and I found it a quick and enjoyable read.

4.0 out of 5 stars Wetherell United, January 15, 2009

By	Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

If you're a fan of WD Wetherell's baroquely funny and imaginative novels, you may enjoy this book, though I must say his anarchic invention has been severely tamped--for valid reasons, since he has committed himself to a difficult task, an extended work of nonfiction centering on his son's struggle to win the state championship in a fiercely competitive soccer environment. There aren't many parts of America in which US football takes a backseat to the traditional "beautiful game," but apparently where the Wetherells live, in New Hampshire, it ranks as #1.

Each couple of pages in the book you get another mini-essay about different aspects of soccer, and some of these work and some don't. He describes the sounds of soccer in minute detail, and this is a great piece, the sounds a fan will hear on an autumn afternoon, the way the earth rumbles as though a horde of buffalo were stampeding across it, and then he marks down, as though in dance notation, the short interjections and exhortations the individual players make. (Wetherell notes that, compared to most sports, soccer players are talky, something I never thought about before.)

The boys on the team each have something to prove, espevcially in the face of a devastasting cheating scandal that had drowned the high school in bad press during the opening of the championship season--a scandal involving football players, the sons of the most prominent town residents, linking their brains together for a Topkapi-style heist of exams. Though no soccer players were directly involved, Wetherell shows how the boys were made vulnerable to the hooting and jeering of their opponents from neighboring high schools, eager to associate the innocent with the disgrace of their schoolmates. Wetherell has his heroes, and they are legion--just about anybody who ever played soccer, and he loves his son's coach, the redoubtable Scot Rob Grabill, "Hanover High's charismatic head coach."

Wetherell tries to be objective in outlining the weaknesses and strengths of the boys on his son's team, but one will smile at the way that Matt, his son, escapes any criticism whatsoever. It's clear that for this soccer dad, the sun shines out of Matt's cleats, and while that's the way it should be, it becomes difficult to make any sense out of Matt as a character. He's an angel, and a great athlete, and the apple of Walter's eye, but he's not really a human being here. I kept wondering when a real boy would break out of the gilded skin his father's prose encases him in. We find out that, although he's now a senior, Matt hasn't been to a party in four years, for there might be drugs or drinking there, and that would be bad.

I won't spoil the suspense of whether or not charismatic Rob Grabill whips his team into the "threepeat" they're all hot for, but I should mention that at the end, a terrible tragedy occurs to one of main characters--an inexplicable, Richard Yateslike dimunition of power. That part was more like one of Wetherell's novels. This book is like being next to a man hollering his head off from the bleachers and you're right next to him with a head cold.