Washington Freedom Open Practice
July 19, 2002

The Freedom held a practice open to the public at the Germantown Soccerplex on July 19, 2002. Here are my photos from the event. I took so many good photos that there are actually two pages. This page contains photos before the scrimmage; the other page contains photos during and after the scrimmage.

To the other open practice page

Back to my soccer page

I had lunch with a friend in the area beforehand, so I arrived kind of early. I stopped by the field they were going to be on, but there was no one there (not surprising, since it was 1.30 and practice started at 2). I drove around for a bit to see if anyone was in the area and eventually stopped at the main building, in part because it was air-conditioned and in part because a Freedom van was in the lot outside. The building itself is a huge gymnasium with a snack bar and a small shop to one side. I went in to find it all but empty - except for the WHOLE FREAKING TEAM! They were all sitting at the tables near the snack bar: players in their blue practice uniforms, and the coaches nearby. Except for the people who worked there, it was just them and me. I felt very conspicuous! But I got a soda from the vending machine - which was right next to where they were sitting - and sat down at a respectful distance. I waved to Erin Fahey and Carrie Moore when I got the chance, and said "hi" to Skylar when she walked past on the way out.

After that, they finally did go over to Field 3, and I followed them. They did assorted warmups, Steffi in particular jogging around the perimeter of the field, before getting started. The first activity was a heading competition: they broke up into pairs ("No twins!" insisted assistant coach Vanole) and competed to see who could head the ball back and forth the longest. Skylar and Emmy came in second the first time, but the clear champions were Jen Grubb and Anne Makinen. While Skylar and Emmy were all over the field, Jen and Anne were just gently nodding the ball back and forth to each other while not even needing to move their feet. (Skylar, incidentally, is particularly vocal, frequently using a certain word beginning with "sh" to punctuate her failures. I think she realized that kids were watching, because she promptly revised her language and was repeatedly exclaiming "Sugar!" But you knew what she was thinking.) A second competition involved knocking the ball back and forth using just their feet, with a fixed number of touches (one, two, or three). The final game was an elimination tournament where the players got into a circle and knocked the ball to one another. If a player took more than one touch, or the ball hit the ground, someone was eliminated: either the passer for a bad pass or the receiver for not handling it properly. Jen Grubb proved to be quite successful here, too.

The final drill was a passing one, with players divided into two groups and spread about the field in a particular formation, each at a specific point. The player at point A would pass the ball to the player at point B, then run to point B while the point B player ran and passed to point C, and so on, until the player at the end would get the ball and run back to the beginning. I got lots of good photographs of the players in one group, who ran back to the start right along the sideline. (The players in the other group - who unfortunately included my girl Carrie - ran back down the middle of the field, so I couldn't get as good photos of them.) The drill included a final competition between the two groups in which the coaching staff offered each of the players in the winning group a dollar. "A dollar?" Skylar asked skeptically. Erin instantly replied, "You can buy a lot for a dollar," which started an improvised 10-10-220 commercial. I shouted to them, "Okay, you've got yourselves a sponsor!"

Who is that strange man with a camera? Steffi warms up to an audience.