Despite being in The Coach's head for quite some time, this idea of French related soccer activities for overweight quadras materialized in early 2003. Parents became friends, teachers became players and Patrice spirit made it a reality. After hectic practice on Saturday mornings, and bodies starting to get out of the fat zone, the crazy idea of playing in a league grew on some of the guys, and they convinced the rest. From comments like: "no way, you'll never be 11 on the field" to "you need to be at least 15 to start a league", to "if you're 14, I'll be the 15th…", on January 23, 2005 French Connection Los Angeles version 1.0 had its first Game in Balboa Park. We missed the play-off that season, but passion was as strong as ever and Euro Soccer version 1.0 took over for the summer league, made it to the play-off and moved up 1 division. In January 2006, Euro Soccer version 2.0 started a division 2 league and made it to the play-off; French Connection version 2 played in the Glendale League, won only 1 game but liked it so much it convinced Euro Soccer to blend in 1 team for the summer league in Glendale under French Connection Version 3.0. I'm sure you now get a sense of the geography in World Soccer Connection…
All of this to let you know that this week, as FCLA v.3.0 plays its first league game, Pierre, captain and founder of FCLA v.1.0 will leave L.A with his family to go back to France, but not without taking 3 players of the original team (plus his son Benji and our friend/guide/life-saver/patrol/cook/doctor/engineer/mountaineer Chris) up to the highest mountain of the US 48 contiguous states (Mt Whitney – Alt 14,500 ft). So enjoy the picture of Emmanuel, Jean-Christophe, Marc and Pierre at the top and wait for a complete story and a link from Pierre and Benji soon.
Marc
PS: If you can do the suicide run and the beep test with Patrice, you can the mountain!
