WOMEN/SPORTS

From Breakup to Breakthrough — Soccer’s Role in My Divorce Recovery

It was a sport that netted happiness through healing kicks and scoring goals

Back in the mid-80s, most Memphians had little exposure to soccer. It wasn’t a popular college sport, very few people played it, and it would be years before soccer finally became a sport played by men and women of all ages.

It was viewed as more of a European sport.

There were only two men’s soccer teams in Memphis back then — both comprised of random enthusiasts and college students from Germany, France, and parts of South America.

And not a single women’s soccer team.

Recently divorced from my archaeologist husband, I struck up a friendship with a man who played on one of the two teams.

Bernard was from Berlin and was anxious for me to learn and appreciate the game of soccer.

I soon became a fan.

I loved the fluidity of the sport. Its gracefulness and the free flow of energy from the players made the game artful and fun to watch.

I was amazed how players could race up and down the field without stopping for 45 minutes and then do it again after the short break.

If there was ever a sport designed to make one physically fit, soccer checked all the boxes.

Besides building strength and endurance it offered a better aerobic workout than the Jane Fonda tapes — then popular at fitness studios.

One day over lunch Bernard suggested I learn to play soccer. I’d always been athletic but I worried soccer was too physically rigorous.

“Nonsense,” he’d said. “You can do it. It’s fun.”

“But who would I play with if I did learn?” I said. “You guys wouldn’t welcome me on your team.”

“Recruit some friends and I’ll teach you all how to play,” Bernard replied. “I’ll be your coach.”

“Then what? We’ll play against your team?”

“Who knows? Maybe. We wouldn’t be too rough on you!” Bernard laughed heartily.

Then he ordered us two more beers.

So I took Bernard up on his offer and within a couple of weeks I rounded up a dozen women.

The youngest was an 18-year-old Brazilian girl named Gabriella. She’d played soccer since childhood and wanted to serve as our goalie.

The oldest was Renee, a 37-year-old law student who was a part-time belly dancer. Renee played tennis and basketball in college and she was the most physically fit member of our team.

Because of a knee injury, Bernard was temporarily sidelined from soccer but was anxious to stay connected to the sport.

Coaching would be a win-win situation.

The rest of the women were friends I dragooned into playing and friends-of-friends who thought it might be fun to learn this exotic sport.

My recruitment tool was the promise of us hanging out with hunky European soccer players who’d be thrilled to watch us play and offer tips.

With crossed fingers, I hoped lightning didn’t accidentally strike where I stood for my fib.

After the first six weeks of devoting our weekends to learning the game and getting accustomed to charging up and down the field, half of the girls dropped out.

Soccer was hard, they protested.

You didn’t tell us how hard.

And where were the hunky guys?

Although I tried to convince them we were becoming the fittest, buffest babes in the city they weren’t buying it.

Ninety minutes of non-stop running separated the wheat from the chaff.

Fortunately, Bernard’s assistant coach Noel recruited another six gals and soon we became a real squad. I named our team the Gonzos, a salute to the works of Hunter S. Thompson.

Learning soccer was easy. The hard part was assigning positions that best matched our abilities. But the coaches figured out where to put our 11 players — our starters — and who our five substitutes could replace.

I played “right inside” — an attacking position called right wing these days. My main job was to create goal-scoring opportunities and to stretch the opposition’s defense.

Renee was chosen to serve as our team’s forward. As our main offensive player at the front line of attack, she became our primary goal scorer.

For eight months, soccer became the central activity in my life. It felt good to be far from the drama of my failed marriage and divorce.

The sport proved to be the physical and emotional outlet I needed to take my mind off ruminating over the reasons for my divorce.

As our team grew closer — turning teammates from acquaintances into friends — I discovered others had their own reasons for playing too.

One wanted to impress her boyfriend — a guy who immediately became jealous of Bernard and broke up with her before our first game.

Another woman was a college athlete who gained 40 pounds since graduation. Within two months of joining our team, she lost 30 pounds, got a new haircut and wardrobe, and met a guy she would eventually marry.

Robin, a student majoring in physical education, aspired to be a coach after graduation. Bernard named her as his “assistant-assistant coach,” a title she would someday use on her resume.

Robin took her role seriously, arriving early at each practice to pick up any trash on the field and to help Bernard with any potential issues.

When one of our players was hospitalized with appendicitis, Robin bought flowers and visited her. When another girl’s soccer shoes were stolen at the YMCA, and she couldn’t afford to buy another pair, Robin bought her a new pair.

I’d never experienced this kind of instant bonding. My friendships had developed over decades — through childhood and middle school to college, through marriages and divorces, holidays and celebrations.

I’d never bonded on 200 yards of dirt and grass surrounded by sweating, panting women — whose reasons for being there were as tangled as their shoelaces and their windswept hair.

As months passed we became better and better.

We played regularly against a women’s team that had formed at a private college. Ironically, a student who had learned to play soccer with us left the Gonzos to create the college team.

We were thrilled.

We finally had a real team to play against. Shortly thereafter, another team emerged from a junior college and suddenly there were now three women’s soccer teams in Memphis.

A newspaper reporter wrote a story on us followed by a segment aired on one of the TV stations. Apparently, women playing soccer were stirring the imaginations of some in our city.

As more people turned out to watch us play, the owners of a downtown watering hole called Bar 348 “adopted” the Gonzos, offering us half-price beverages when we played — but only if we showed up in our short, sweat-soaked uniforms.

Things soon began to turn weird.

A men’s team wanted to play us — promising not to overplay or get anyone hurt. Bernard didn’t like the idea, but we finally wore him down and a date was set.

The game was attended by a large enthusiastic crowd. Supporters from both sides screamed and cheered from the sidelines. The match was going well for us. We scored two goals in the first half which I think surprised everyone.

Then suddenly our defensive midfielder accidentally landed a kick that connected not with the ball but the leg of their left winger.

The referee blew his whistle and the young man limped off the field. He was quickly replaced and the game went on.

We were awarded two penalty kicks in the second half, but the men beat us 14–4. We were still elated to hold our own against them.

Our elation turned sour when we learned our player had broken the leg of their left winger.

Profuse apologies were offered and we morosely made our way down to Bar 348, where we half-heartedly toasted ourselves and our opponents.

As we tossed back Red Stripes — our favorite team beer at that time — the men assured us they had no hard feelings.

“Injuries happen in soccer,” they said.

Just as the band was getting ready to crank up one of the bar’s owners waddled onstage with a large box. He proceeded to crow about how proud they were of us and how happy they were to be our sponsors.

We looked at each other quizzically.

Sponsors?

Since when had they sponsored anything for us?

Half-price beer was their only contribution and here this guy was talking like they had some ownership in our team.

Bernard shook his head with disgust.

Then came the real coup de grâce.

He began pulling bright red T-shirts from the box, tossing them at our team members.

“Here’s what you girls need to wear— to help us advertise the bar and promote your team.”

Bernard picked up a shirt that landed on the floor. After a quick look, his face turned crimson and he threw it back down on the beer-splashed concrete.

“What is it? What is it?” we wanted to know.

Someone next to me held up a shirt. On the front in large black letters was the Gonzos.

On the back, it read: “I didn’t get raped at Bar 348!”

En masse, our team — and our opponents — rose as one and left the bar, shirts still scattered with at least one soaked with beer that had been poured on it.

It felt like the beginning of the end.

Soon dark secrets began emerging. Renee, who was married, had been having an affair with Noel and was now pregnant. Bernard told me later she’d come on strong to him but he’d rebuffed her efforts.

Renee’s husband was threatening to sue the team as well as Noel. He’d already started an intimidation campaign and had contacted the various colleges the girls attended, saying the Gonzo coaches were molesting the players.

With this news of alleged molestation making the rounds, Bernard was finally forced to come out of the closet.

“You’re gay?” I squeaked.

He told me Renee’s husband hired a private detective to root out any information he could gather on us.

I was stunned.

None of us even knew Noel and Renee were screwing around. Why drag us into it?

Bernard said if his father in Germany found out about any of this his life in the U.S. was over.

“I don’t know what would upset him more. The accusation of molesting someone or being gay. He’d kill me either way.”

For Noel’s part, he left Memphis for whereabouts unknown. He left a note in Bernard’s mailbox apologizing for the trouble he’d caused.

He scribbled the name and number of a guy he said might make a good assistant coach.

Renee, our best player, was gone for good.

I never saw her again.

Within a week there were two more tragedies. Gabriella got sideswiped in a car she was driving. After three weeks in critical care, she died from her brain injuries.

Shannon, the young lady who planted the leg-breaking kick, was raped. Not at Bar 348 but down the street from it. She was assaulted in her vehicle by a man she’d just met and had agreed to give a lift.

Although he was picked up and questioned the next day by the police, her accusation was dismissed as a “consensual encounter.”

Gone from our roster were Shannon, Renee, and Gabriella. Noel had left, and Bernard was living in fear his father would summon him home.

It’s tempting to assume the ending of the Gonzos left me in a sad and negative space.

But happiness is a complex artifact.

Those months were some of the best I’d ever experienced. It was what I needed to shake off post-divorce blues and connect with new friends.

Several of them are people I still have contact with today.

Robin fulfilled her dream of becoming a coach. Shannon survived her ordeal and became the director of a women’s domestic abuse center.

There were several women on the team whose weddings I attended. When they had kids I teased them about when they were going to start playing soccer.

It was fun to see them become soccer moms.

And today, most are soccer grandmoms.

Fortunately, Bernard wasn’t recalled to Germany and returned to playing on his old team. He became an American citizen and today is married to a fellow soccer player.

The two men own a thriving sports bar in Memphis.

Bar 348 was shuttered a few years ago. It’s T-shirt antic didn’t win the bar any new customers and old ones drifted away — disgusted by the shirts.

Even after the inevitable demise of the Gonzos, I remain an avid soccer fan. As the sport grew in popularity, our city finally gained a professional team — and still has one today.

Being part of the Gonzos was a case of being in the right head space at the right time — and, kicking balls in the rain, running in 35 degrees and snowing weather, experiencing that good-tired feeling of pushing yourself to the limit, and then relaxing in the afterglow of exertion, was exactly what I needed to heal.

© 2024 Deborah Camp. All rights reserved.

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