Jobson still creating new soccer fans

Fall sports have already begun, so it must be time for me to return to my regular spot on the back page of the Daily Herald.

I'll be here all season, trying to relate the stories I see on my travels to various venues.

To open the year, let me take you back a little bit -- to one of the area's best, who's about to participate in the biggest event her sport offers.

As she stood with the fourth official at the center stripe, I announced to those sitting with me that Marci Jobson was about to make her entry onto the Soldier Field turf for the U.S. women's national soccer team in its Aug. 12 victory over New Zealand.

My son craned his neck to see. My daughter, being 6, climbed onto my lap to get a better view. They say there are problems with the youth in this country being players who never become fans.

My daughter likes to ride horses. But she also knows her soccer obsessed dad's favorite team is Arsenal and her attention perked when Jobson took the field.

My son, age 10 and a baseball player, remembers sitting with former St. Charles coach Paul Keenan -- now the head coach at Notre Dame High School -- the night Chris Armas scored in overtime to send the Chicago Fire to the 2003 MLS title game.

In retrospect, I was trying to see as much of Jobson's appearance as well. It was, after all, probably the last time I'd have a chance to see her in competition. Her international career is unlikely to continue beyond the World Cup, which begins Sept. 10 in China.

Jobson is also the women's soccer coach at Northern Illinois and has expressed interest in starting a family and in concentrating on her coaching.

But Jobson always made news on fields of play, even on this Sunday when she played briefly in a 6-1 blowout win for the U.S.

Jobson plays as a defensive midfielder for U.S. coach Greg Ryan. In her 15 minutes on the field, I didn't see Jobson make a bad pass -- and she helped solidify a defense that was beginning to wobble a bit against a resurgent Kiwi team.

Of course I'd seen this before. Jobson always had talent, but she was always a great on-field organizer. She didn't let a lot of passes go astray at St. Charles, when she was the last of eight soccer-playing Miller children.

In those early days, she was playing alongside older sister Maggie in the midfield. By the time she left, Jobson ran the show, but was surrounded by one of the school's great teams, including Ruth Vostal, now the girls coach at St. Charles North.

These thread lines matter. We're always told that American children give up soccer at the first opportunity. Maggie Miller helped Jobson at her camp this summer, Vostal is still very involved in the game, as is her sister Anne Poulin, who still plays and coaches.

I can't speak for every family, but there seems to be some interest in the game amongst my children -- who are not currently playing any level of organized soccer. They exist more as fans than players.

I thought about all this when 66,000 watched David Beckham play the other night. The game grows one person at a time. This is still a grass roots thing. And I couldn't help but think as Marci Jobson trotted onto the field that the grass is pretty green indeed.