Proud Dad: My Youngest Daughter Graduates, Plays Hurt

You've been warned by the title. If you don't want to here me brag about my kids, stop reading now.

Both of my kids play hurt. (Where do they get that?? I try to teach them safety first!!) For Lisa, her latest injury almost meant graduating with an bandage X holding her broken nose in place. Earlier this year, Lauren, Lisa's older sister almost missed a soccer tournament because she got a nasty concussion playing indoor soccer while she was home on Christmas break. Lauren is one of the two starting goalkeepers for Juniata College Women's Soccer Team.



My youngest daughter Lisa graduated from Lancaster Country Day School today. I spoke with her just after graduation and heard about the aftermath of her last soccer game of the senior season. Lisa plays striker and gets many goals on headballs. In the last game of her senior season she went for a headball right in front of the goal and slammed her nose into an opposing players head. Lisa bled all over her uniform and had to go to the sidelines to get cleaned up--the rules say you can't play with blood on the uniform.

She went back in, scored the only goal for her team (with her foot) and finished the game. More than a week later she learned she had a broken nose that needed to be reset. She got her nose set and taped and finished the last two weeks of classes. She for the bandages off the day before graduation, so her grad pictures won't have a bandage X on her face.

While I was getting ready to leave for deployment, Lauren dove for a ball and put her head into the metal post of the smaller-sized indoor soccer goal. She finished the game but had to rest to the point she was barely allowed to walk to class and could not work out at all. She recovered in time for the tournament and her team was the overall tournament winner.

This fall Lauren will be back in the goal for Juniata for her junior year. Lisa will be running D-1 Cross Country for the University of Richmond. She is the first female athlete in LCDS history to play Division One sports and one of just a who have ever gone on to NCAA Division 1 sports.

The deployment will be 1/3 over in a week and I have already missed a lot major events in the lives of my daughters and the rest of my family. If all goes well I will be home in mid-June for my mother-in-law's Memorial service and spend time with my family and friends. In some ways the time is passing quickly, but in others, it's already a long year.


Lisa uninjured


Lauren uninjured