Fishing and soccer have more in common than meets the eye

After watching the World Cup, I see a ton of similarities in fishing and soccer. Fishing is an international language, and much like soccer, it provides a common bond for those who watch it and participate.

It’s funny how those who don’t watch or participate in either would rather watch paint dry, but those in the middle of it can’t get enough. There is no doubt that soccer and fishing are truly step-brothers.

Believe it or not, I watched quite a bit of the World Cup. Seeing the world’s fascination with soccer gave me hope that fishing can continue to grow. The fans of soccer are rabid.

My son Tyler played soccer and I went to every game to support him. The game he played under the tutelage of Bodo Fritzen (at University High) was strategic and they were winners. But I never really got it. Offsides calls just didn’t make sense — almost like getting a breakaway layup in basketball and then not being able to shoot. The other dads at the games were all in, but I spent more time at the concession stand.

To this day, I can’t see an ounce of difference between the stars and the rest of the team. They tried to explain the differences, but to me that was just “dad talk.” Scoring seemed to be an anomaly, but when it happened the high fives and cheering was unbelievable. I just said: “It’s about time.” Soccer is analogous to ice fishing in that way, I guess.

To be honest, the only soccer I was ever involved with was in PE class and it was more kick and chase than any strategy — just like the very young kids today, it was bunch ball. Wherever the ball was, everyone was. No positions, no strategy — just kick and chase. Our teachers talked strategy and we listened attentively, but once on the field, that all went away.

If my memory serves me, we really didn’t even use a soccer ball. The one we used was hard as a brick, and because there was no grass on the outfield of the baseball field (because it was used for football — the oblong kind), the ball would roll forever. I do remember we had way too many people on the field — the whole PE class — so touching the ball was a highlight. The fast guys got it better than the others, and even though I was in excellent shape and pretty quick, I was never really worth a hoot at it. I kicked with my toe against the side of my instep, so it wasn’t very controllable.

When I went to college to play basketball, our coach made it mandatory that we also played soccer — I think it was to keep us in shape. I found out there the Canadian guys had it dialed in. It was a completely different game than kick-and-chase, and they actually could control the ball.

I took the job as head of field maintenance, so I mowed, did the lines and patched turf — that got me out of playing. But seeing those guys play gave me an appreciation of it truly being a sport, and although I still didn’t get it, I at least appreciated their talent. Hockey and soccer were mainstays for those boys from the Klondike and they were actually good at both. I guess hockey is a derivative of soccer, or vice versa — many of the rules, including my favorite offsides rule, were in place in both.

As I reflect back on it, soccer would have been a great sport in my small town upbringing, as we normally only had 3 or 4 players and all you need is a ball for a game. Had it been on the radar screen then as it is today, we might have seen it grow sooner. The popularity globally staggers the mind.

The more I think of it, there are so many similarities with soccer and fishing, and maybe it will take a more international presence to put fishing on the level of soccer. There is a group working hard on making fishing an Olympic sport, and that visibility would be huge. Competitions between countries are gaining momentum, but we need more and better media coverage to make it more mainstream. It is an individual sport, but it is easily parlayed into a team event. The US continues to dominate in those competitions, but if you look at the products we use today, they, too, are more global. The time could be right.