Sean just graduated from high school and as he packs up his family home stops for a moment to share with the audience what he experienced growing up and how he got where he is today. Being the only child of two loving parents at a young age he thought he had it made. But as we all know sometimes life has a different plan for us. At the age of 11 Sean’s mother died from a brain tumor and his father immediately went into overdrive. He didn't want Sean’s life to be negatively affected, so whatever it took is what he was willing to give. But even at 11 years old when Sean’s mother got sick, while his parents lied to him it didn't change the fact that he saw all of the signs. When at 17 Sean started to again see the secrets in his father he confronted him, begging him to tell him the truth and not treat him like he was a child. But like the pin his father wore on his shirt to all of his soccer games, “world's best dad,” would never overload his son with adult problems. Often parents have the best intentions. Sometimes those intentions come with the beginning of family secrets, secrets they are keeping in order to keep their children safe. But as Sean watched his father deteriorate, his father never broke, never told him what it was. Luckily, his father taught him what he had experienced as a young boy playing soccer on a team full of men that became his brothers for life, he taught him to commit. Whatever it is that you do, do it at 100% all of the time. That may be planting a garden like his mother, or being the most supportive father in the stands, whatever it is always show up and do it at 100%.
Commit
(Scene opens with SEAN, an eighteen-year-old young man sweeping, cleaning, moving around furniture. He sees a soccer ball, brings it out with his foot and starts to do some tricks, laughs.)
My dad loved soccer. When I say the man loved soccer, I mean he had the schedule for our favorite team posted on the refrigerator, the back of the front door to our house, another schedule was taped to the side of the television just in case we needed it in a pinch. He would even text me updates, call me and leave me messages or send me little cartoons representing our favorite players doing silly things. He said, “What makes sports so special and soccer specifically is that it brings you together with a group of people and you can start in kindergarten and stay with the same group all the way through high school.” That's exactly what I did, he experienced that and he wanted it for me as well. There's a picture on the wall in his bedroom of him and 11 guys that he played soccer with starting at the age of four all the way through high school graduation, it's wild to think that not only did he know someone for that long but he knew 11 people that long and they always stayed committed to each other. (beat) Commitment. Yeah, dad drilled commitment like it was the eleventh commandment. (smile) When he met mom, he thought that was going to be his greatest commitment… then they had me. Dad never wavered on commitment, on being a great husband and excelling at being the Worst Best Dad. (laughs) I even got him that as a pin to wear on his jacket when I was like five (beat) he’d still wear it on my game days, pat his chest where it lived from the stands so I would know he loved me… can’t put my finger on the shift, the moment, the reason… life- like the wind just shifts sometimes.