The build–up to the start of college football season used to be like those long months before Christmas morning for me. The pre–season magazines, sports radio banter, and ESPN preview shows got me more excited than a 1977 Sears catalog full of Star Wars figures.

Sporting a bad bowl cut, an ugly pair of Tuff Skins, and a Planet of the Apes T–shirt, I’d sprawl out on the maroon shag carpet with the false hope Santa would bring me every toy I circled on every page I had folded down. As I got older, I’d watch Kirk Herbstreit and all the other prognosticators, listen to fans on the radio, and read all the pre–season predictions with the false hope that this year would be the year for my Clemson Tigers.

But that’s not the case anymore. I have a new passion now. Don’t get me wrong, college football still means a lot to me, but it doesn’t mean everything.

These days my heart has moved from the pigskin to the pitch. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’d rather watch 10–year–old girls kick around a soccer ball off Polo Road, than watch tigers run down a hill in Death Valley. Of course, one of those 10–year –olds is my youngest daughter.

I don’t worry so much anymore about Florida State linebackers or the Georgia Tech option game as I do about goalkeepers who look like teenagers or strikers faster than C.J. Spiller. Kyle Parker’s return to Clemson doesn’t concern me half as much as the devastating effect one case of strep throat or a family vacation can have on a 10–man roster during an 8 v 8 soccer tournament.

I rarely discuss the Miami Hurricane blitz packages with my friends, but the other dads and I do talk about the best way to attack the defense of an opposing team of 10–year–old little girls. It’s probably not the healthiest thing in the world to do, but it’s my life, and the best part is that my daughter’s team doesn’t lose to Maryland every year.

Actually, the best part is that my younger son and older daughter also play soccer so it’s like I get a triple–header every weekend. Despite the fact the most important part of my son’s game is the post–game snack, I’d still rather have a crowd of seven– year–old boys clambering for a pack of Oreos and a juice box, than watch the press conference explaining how the Terrapins lone ACC win came against Clemson.

My oldest daughter plays soccer purely for fun. While she is blessed in many areas, speed is not one of them. She tried to score all of last year, and in the final seconds of the final game with the help of about 42 assists from her teammates, she got one. I couldn’t have been happier if Clemson had won the National Championship.

Eventually, my kids’ sporting careers will come to an end, and I can go back to screaming at referees through a television screen and hoping that this year will be the year for my Tigers, but until then I’m going to treasure every second on the sidelines of the soccer fields or basketball courts or baseball stands, because that’s where my heart belongs.