This Is American Soccer, US Soccer, MNT, WNT, and MLS - Tackling the subject of Soccer in the US, and worldwide.

Los Angeles illustrator and artist Noe Valladolid begins his illustrated soccer biography

The TIAS Diary Project returns with the first part of a series put together by a young man in Southern California. This is his life’s story, his soccer story in words and pictures. Consider it a stab at a TIAS comic book.

Speaking of life stories, maybe you’ve heard that journalism is in a tough spot, facing obstacles both financial and technological. It hit me hard last year when I was laid off from my fulltime editor job at a magazine. Since then I’ve been searching for my next chapter, piling on the freelance work where I can get it.

In an effort to be fully transparent, this month I added NIke to my list of freelance clients by writing some projects directly for the company. TIAS will remain as the place for my independent journalism stories, essays, and deeper discussions, and I hope you will continue to follow along (and maybe submit your own Diary Project).

Now back to Noe’s life. Following is the first in a number of serial guest posts that I have been working on in the last month in an effort to expand upon and deepen the discussion of my single biggest editorial question: What is American Soccer?

A Life Toward Soccer

by Noe Valladolid

This is my true story of futbol. The game that I remember and love. A game that has managed to find its way into my life and the lives of my family for several generations. The first part of my story recounts the very first time I discovered the game and the first time I kicked the ball around.

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My earliest sports memories revolve around my height. In every class picture beginning in kindergarten and going all the way up through high school I always stood out. Line us up shortest to tallest, and I would always find myself at the end of the line, sometimes beating the next tallest kid by a quarter-inch but more likely by a head and a half. You would think that the biggest kid in school would be a natural for sports.

Size, skills, and passion are mutually exclusive elements. You can’t teach size but you can teach skills. Well, you can teach skills up to a point. If you are born without passion then size and skills don’t matter. I was a tall kid with no passion for sports. I preferred the arts, playing music and illustrating. Friends and teachers always pushed me towards sports but I resisted. I didn’t have many good memories of playing sports as a kid.

Games of basketball were routine in elementary school. I’d get the rebound 99% of the time and look for an open teammate to pass to. It saved me the humiliation of attempting consecutive missed lay-ups. On full court games I’d get the rebound and take off running in the other direction… with the basketball tucked under my arm. My classmates would fall down laughing. I kept forgetting to dribble the ball. If there was ever a turnover in the game chances are it was 99% my stupidity as well. The simplest rules of the game, which were second nature to everyone else on the playground, evaded me. My classmates said it was understandable. Mexican’s weren’t supposed to be good basketball players.

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I got older and taller but the game never got easier. Opponents soon resorted to hanging from my arms, or climbing on me to steal the ball. It was one thing to be laughed at on the playground, another thing to be the jungle gym. It was fun for everybody else but not for me. I stopped playing sports for the remainder of my time in grade school.

There was the sole exception of a game between the school’s band and orchestra in my senior year of high school. That game showed how little things had changed since my days on the playground. The clumsy guy with glasses could still upset the most dedicated ballers simply because he was the tallest guy out there. I managed to get most of the rebounds, miss most of my lay ups and suffer the indignity of having classmates climbing on me. Of course I also helped team orchestra build an insurmountable lead and was asked to take the bench for the next 20 minutes. We won by a wide margin and a few band members stopped talking to me after that.

I learned years before “Band v Orchestra” that the best games weren’t always the ones played in school.

One day after school I was sulking around the house looking for something to do. I turned on the television and flipped it to the Spanish stations. I there sat mesmerized, seeing adults dressed in bright colors - like superheroes, running full speed while passing the ball back and fourth with the softest of touches. The stands were packed with people chanting, whistling, playing drums and unfurling massive banners. It was a spectacle, the likes of which I couldn’t find an equal to on English sports channels.

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My mother and father always wanted their kids to play outside and be active. They encouraged us by taking us to the park, teaching us to ride bikes—the usual family stuff. It was the odd black and white ball that dad bought us from Mexico that held the most intrigue. They taught us that in this sport you were supposed to use your feet rather than your hands. You could juggle the ball with your knees, shoulders and hips, but never ever touch it with your arms. They both told me it was a fun game once I got the hang of it. I wondered why if the game was so much fun, how come none of my friends played it. They said it was because schools don’t teach the sports that the USA didn’t dominate in.

What countries were good at this sport then?

They told me just about every other country south of the border and over in Europe could beat the USA at fútbol, even the poor little countries.

C’mon, if the game was so big then how come it wasn’t on TV.

They told me I had seen it, only the American version of football wasn’t the same version that the rest of the world played. This country had built a sports empire under false pretenses. They explained to me that the most popular sports in the USA didn’t have the following of fútbol. No basketball, football or baseball star could rival the most famous fútbolero.

If I was expected to idolize athletes like my classmates were then the least I could do was get my heritage right.

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As a Mexican-American I was part of a proud tradition that supported and excelled at fútbol, going back to the foundation of the country if not even earlier. If not for Mexico, the game that we know it would never have come to exist. Mom and dad assured me that the ancient settlers of Mexico, the Aztec’s and Mayans had practically invented the game. Only the most courageous warriors, bronze men of stature (hey, that sounded a little like me) participated in the game. In modern times their ancestors were idolized and sought after for their athletic ability. Latin American men ended up playing baseball in the USA and fútbol everywhere else.

I was a member of a very privileged class. Even if I didn’t play I could still claim a real connection to the culture. Fans of “American” sports only talked amongst themselves. I was given a passport to the rest of the sports world. I could travel abroad and be able to talk to them in the universal language of fútbol. Even countries suspicious of my accent would welcome me with open arms. All I had to do was mentioned that I was Mexican rather than American or that I was there for a fútbol game.

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My parents taught me that if there was one thing that the other countries enjoyed more than competition, it would be knocking the USA off its high horse. The double identity I held was finally beginning to pay off. I could get into the club simply by knowing the right words. Of course using those words meant I’d have to leave the country. They said that I could stick with the games played at school, the ones that us Mexican’s weren’t supposed to be good at, or choose to honor my ancestors by playing the game that all Mexicans were naturally gifted at.

My mind was blown.

I took the fútbol out to the yard in front of the apartment complex. Dribbled that ball for 10 minutes, bouncing it off the walls before breaking my uncle’s window.

Naturally gifted my ass.

I lied to uncle Alfredo about what happened. I’m certain he knew but didn’t call me out for it. I learned my lesson and haven’t kicked a fútbol since. Time would eventually unravel the other fables my parents taught me about the game and what it means to be a fan.

I’ll save those stories for another day.

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Noe blogs over at 1Up.com