Each weekend as fall takes control, over 1,000 boys and girls grace the fields of West Seattle (and a few in Burien and Des Moines) to play soccer, the world sport. If you are a parent, you are well aware of the time and energy that coaches put into this effort n patiently explaining, encouraging and correcting as our children thrill to running a field in a uniform cheered by parents and friends.

What you may not know is that in addition to your coach, a small band of volunteers process the registrations, reserve fields for practices and games, purchase uniforms, goals and balls, handle distribution of all the equipment, line fields, assign children to teams making sure that Timmy is with his best buddy and that Sarah can be with her school chums, and handing every conceivable situation that might occur.

These folks nfewer than 12 adults n are often unknown and unappreciated. They, too, have children, work, and households to maintain, but late at night after children are put to bed, they get online and get to work. From the West Seattle Soccer Club president, Bill Fry, to the supporting cast of men and women who make this league viable, they work tirelessly behind the scenes to make fall soccer a great experience for kids and families alike.

So tonight, after your kids are in bed and you are folding clothes or paying bills or, heaven forbid, reading a book or catching a favorite TV show, send a good thought to those few people who are skipping the show, the book, or the laundry and are working to make sure boys and girls in West Seattle get a chance to compete, to learn, and most of all have fun. They truly deserve it.

Jennifer Cargal

Fauntleroy