First Pro Contact (woot)

I signed my first pro contract today with the Kitsap Pumas S.C. Woot. There are only a few games left in the season, but oh well. I won't go into details about it, but it is there and signed. I went over to their office today and met with the owner and his direct subordinate, basically the two hot shots in the club, to talk about it face to face. I also got the general jist of everything explained to me. Kitsap is one of about four clubs in the PDL that are technically "professional". They would eventually like to move up to USL-2 or 1, but the immediate future probably holds something more along the lines of the PDL splitting onto the USL-3 and PDL and they will be in the USL-3 (comprised of Pro-PDL teams, which they're hoping will grow next year). It cost $75,000 to establish a USL-2 franchise and $750,000 a USL-1, or something along those lines. So, its not just results that can push you up or down, more to do with money. Also I had explained that they have a stadium of their own in the works for the future, maybe a 8,000 seater, but that is several years away. Kitsap has a 3 year contract with Bremerton Memorial Stadium, which isn't a bad place. you can do much worse than that field.

Also, I met Thomas the last time I was at Franklin (I'll try and get some pictures of these places up soon). He is friends with Gabriel and Eban. He's 28 and runs what sounded like youth sports clinics and day camps for community youths.

In other news, I went on my frist bike tour of Seattle the other day and promptly got lost. Not really lost, I knew the general direction I was trying to go in, but I kept running into dead ends. Problem is in Seattle, when you run into a dead end, there's a good chance you have to bike up a really steep hill in order to get back to where you just came from. Finally I got to Lake Washington Blvd, my original destination, and road on that for a while until I got to Seward Park and rose around the bike trail the goes along the outskirts of that twice before heading back up Lk Wash Blvd way too far into Madrona and Capital Hill. About a mile or so and several large, large hills too far north of where I live on Beacon Hill. All in all, I have no idea how far I went. Then I made the horrible mistake of doing what my plan was all along. On Wednesday I biked to the ferry, took the ferry across to Bremerton, biked to Steve's house. In all, about 5 miles and several large, long hills later I was there. Unfortunately it used up about half my gas tank and I spent most of the practice going through the motions and humiliating myself in front of the keeper coach, the assistant coach, and the four other keepers (yes, four) because my body was just physically spent. Eventually, they ended up playing 4v4 with keepers. The last game went into overtime because apparently it was the "championship game". I didn't know. The way these things work is that the keepers stay in their places and the teams switch around. So, practice ends and I go over and look at my watch. 5:15. The ferry was at 5:30. According to google maps, the distance form the field to the ferry: 2 miles. But about half of those 2 miles is a 2 lane bridge that you can walk your bike across on a narrow walk way, or ride. Having 0% energy left at this time, I chose to ride...and hold up traffic for a quarter mile in a small town. Unheard of. Yes, I got to the ferry on time. Oh wait, not done yet, now I have to bike home. I didn't even try. I walked my bike up the MASSIVE hills near the waterfront, which alone are about a mile long with I swear to god, a 15% incline (Today I was stopped going up the hill at a red light and I burned rubber because you have to accelerate so fast from a dead stop so you don't go back into the car behind you). Long story short (too late), I got to the top of the hill and road the mostly downhill bike ride back to my house, another couple of miles.

Today my body felt awful, but it was okay because I also signed my first professional contract.