Expressway: We had our kicks ...

BY MIKE COHEN

It begins at age 4. Parents sign up their children for soccer. Every weekend in the fall and the spring, sometimes on both Saturday and Sunday, we stand on the sidelines, cheering them on. As kids get older, they play outdoors in the blazing heat of summer and move to indoor arenas in the depths of winter. When they start playing, they seem to run together in circles, bouncing off each other like pinballs, never quite sure of the basics of the game. By 7 or 8, they start to pass, dribble and take shots . . . other than accidental ones.

With time, some become members of travel teams. We drive them to and from contests on fields from Queens to Mattituck, and, occasionally, to New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Soccer becomes an integral part of your life.

Some say parents get vicarious thrills from this experience. Guilty as charged. I still consider myself a geek who would trip over the lines on the field . . . not athletic and perpetually envious of those who are. We love every minute of every game, even when our teams lose -- although winning sure makes the ride home a lot more enjoyable.

For the Cohen family, the journey began with our son Stephen in 1993, continued with our daughter, Jessie, and our younger son, Doug. They are now 22, 20 and 17, respectively. This month, 18 years later, Doug played his last high school game.

Suddenly, we're no longer soccer parents.

As the years passed, the level of competition increased dramatically. We stood in awe of the surgical precision of elite teams. Looming on the horizon stood high school, the last stage in this process for most young players.

With our children and their teammates, we dreamed of league and county championships, and maybe even a state title. Events on the field told us that we would not reach those heights, but nobody could stop us from hoping.

Doug's Bay Shore High School team reached the 2011 county playoffs, losing its first-round game to Brentwood, 1-0, on Nov. 1. As we drove home to Bay Shore, my wife and I let it sink in -- the stark realization that the soccer phase of our lives was over.

Over dinner, Doug recalled teammates he played with 13 years ago and coaches who led his teams through their formative years. Margaret and I admitted to each other that we choked up, but he never saw us -- at least that's what he tells us now.

After turning in his uniform, meeting with coaches, and attending a team dinner, Doug has turned his attention to college applications. Sleep will become a less rare commodity. More time will be dedicated to homework, and occasionally to video games. Bowling, a much more relaxed competitive endeavor for Doug -- and for his parents -- has started already. In March, practice begins for lacrosse.

Margaret and I? We'll go to every bowling match and lacrosse game, which we've done for five or six years, not 14. We may even begin to come up with plans for afternoons without the kick that we got from soccer.

The father of one of our son's teammates summed up the end of soccer best: "bummer."

Reader Mike Cohen lives in Bay Shore.