I'm a sports fan. For the most part I follow baseball, football, hockey and soccer. But I actually wanted to talk about something else. Not my writing and following of sports, but rather talk about my playing career. I've wrote about sports before, whether it's for Odyssey or when I was back in high school writing sports articles for the Upper Moreland "Bearprint". However I've never wrote a story about my actual playing career, so here it is.

Baseball/Softball

The first sport I played was baseball. I played baseball for three years and wasn't too good at it. As I got older I played the summer camp version of baseball, "stickball", where I played catcher or outfield and I felt like Oakland A's catcher Terry Steinbach, just crushing home runs. I currently play softball in the spring with my parents, which give me the old feelings of playing the spot again.

Upper Moreland Soccer (Intramural/HS/Indoor, 2001-2013)

The second sport I played, which is the majority of this story, is that of soccer. I started playing soccer at Upper Moreland along with my first three years of baseball. After my third year of baseball was over, I just stuck with soccer. I can remember my mom showing me one of my first games that I ever played. The date of the videotape...September 8th, 2001. Gives you chills doesn't it? I was only six years old when that tragedy happened three days later, no one knew what was going to happen. But we digress. I met a few good friends who were also teammates of mine up until the high school years; Dan Murt, the son of PA State Representative Tom Murt, we called him "Dirty" Murt. It was Murt who gave me the nickname, KPurch.

Tim Kistner, one of the top players in our intramural league, he had the smarts of where to be at a certain time in play. I actually scored a goal against him when he once played goalie. It was a U-15 game and it was windy and raining. All I intended to do was to clear the ball to his team's half and I saw this ball just fly into the back of the net, because apparently the wind picked it up. It felt like it took forever and I didn't believe I actually scored that.

I also had the privilege of playing for and against two of Upper Moreland's best goalies: Kyle Jensen and Conrad Mason. I actually played for Tim's team in one of the two U-15 championship games I played in, and in this one we could not figure out their defense nor Conrad. They was just that good, but both championships losses were 1-0. I was on both losing sides which was a shame, but the first championship game I didn't even get to play in; that game was even worse regarding the weather. It was November and we could barely feel our feet. I was on the sidelines and I could do nothing, but hopelessly watch my team struggle to make a dent in their defense. I felt like my U-15 years was where I improved my skills and team role the most, and at our team party which was the norm back in the day with team parties, Tim's father said that "if there was any award that I could give to the player who improved the most in the season, it'd be Kyle [Purchase]".

I took that with me to my U-18 and indoor soccer years and also trying out for the high school varsity team. This part of my soccer career was bittersweet for me. My U-18 travel teams were great and I felt like I was the "veteran" player for the younger teammates and a figure they could look up to or tell a story if they ever asked about my experience. We made it to the championship again, but lost in extra time to a Hatboro team, but the referees didn't do a good job reffing either. Not blaming the refs on this one, but it was a bit ugly considering the facts that they would give five minutes of extra time and it ended up being 2:56; my father also timed the extra time. The bitter part of my career was that I tried out for Upper Moreland's high school varsity team. I went through three years of UK Elite camps and tried out all three years, but never made the team. The coach at the time, Jack Knauss, did however offer me a position as varsity team manager. He told me that he loved kids who kept coming out even though they've been cut multiple times, in other words, he liked the fact that I didn't give up. The assistant coach, Tom Knoll, also said that I was an asset to the rest of the team since I essentially grew up with these guys since my first years playing intramurals. I had a great time being with the team and they always saw me as a teammate. I played on a few indoor teams during off-seasons and the last indoor team I played for was just the seniors, a special way to go out of my high school career.

So what about my career now at Widener? I would consider myself "semi-retired" because I don't play in summer leagues or the teams I've played for haven't been as organized like they were with previous ones. Widener is planning on having a club team though, so I'm giving that a shot. I do attend Widener's men's soccer team games and they are very entertaining. Reminds me of my playing days with that level of intensity.

So, whenever I'm home from Widener and it's nice outside, I take a stroll down to the old playing fields where I played my U-15 games to kick the ball around. I sometimes stop and take a look around imagining the crowds that were there for our games, the infamous moments when we played during a tropical storm in those cool days of September and October. All the teams I played for, I felt like I contributed to them in a special way; I wasn't the "all-star" athlete we looked up to as kids, but rather someone who was seen as a leader who didn't give up on their playing career (like Bo Jackson) and an experienced veteran of Upper Moreland soccer. I scored a few goals. I think I counted 23, but the numbers don't matter, the memories do.

Those were the days.