My Portugal Moment with Shannon MacMillan

Anything Can Happen

What a DAY!  On November 2, 2003, the US Women's National Soccer Team played Mexico in a friendly at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas.  Being a member of Sam's Army and a HUGE fan of Shannon MacMillan (see my website if you have any questions), obviously I was there.  (This is the match report from the USSF.)

I wore my MacMillan jersy and brought along with my usual assorment of flags and scarves that I wear for US games.  I had ridden my motorcycle, Noel, to the game.  (For more information on Noel, check out Highway Child and the 28th Cavalry Regiment of Sam's Army pages.)  There was a decent gagle of us in The Army, and we had a good time singing and chanting and drumming for the Women in Red.

Shannon didn't play in the first half, but was warming up at halftime along with Tiffeny Milbrett and Abby Wambach.  At one point, Tiffeny came near the Sam's Army section to get a ball, and I called out to her and got her attention.  I then pointed out my shirt and said that I would love it if Shannon would sign it after the game, if possible, and if she would please ask her to come over.  Tiffeny gave me the thumbs up, but you never know what that means.

Well, when the game was over, and after we had been told by a Burn vice president (who we knew well enough to ask) that they weren't going to do signatures since they did them the day before at practice, I thought about leaving.  And at that time, Abby and Kylie Bivens walked by and said they couldn't do signatures.  It seemed like half of the 23,000 people who attended the game wanted to get down to the field, and I didn't want the people I was with to have to wait for nothing.  But they were kind enough to tell me we could wait, so we did.

And lo and behold, Shannon comes walking straight to me.  No kidding - bee-line straight.  I didn't dare hope, but on she came, and next thing I know, she takes off her shoes, signs them, and signs my jersey.  The pics are below.  I hope to have pics of her signing my jersey as a couple of people said they got photos of that.


Closeups

Signatures

ShannonSigns  


REFERENCES

What do I mean by Portugal Moment?  Laura and I went to the World Cup in Korea in 2002, and we were at most 20 rows back from the goal where the US just ate Portugal alive on June 6, 2002.  And while I will admit that I had faith that a day like that could in fact happen, and that I hoped it would happen and that I would be there, I didn't dare dream that it would happen right in front of me in 2002.  It was completely unexpected.

This was the same thing.  I have admired Shannon ever since I first saw her in 1996 when the US played England.  She is in many ways the anti-Mia.  She isn't flashy, she isn't someone Nike is going to say, "We're going to make a star out of HER!"  But she works as hard as anyone on that team, and has earned every moment of success she has on her own.  She is like many of the women on that team - great players who don't get out from Mia's shadow.  But for me, Shannon has always been more than that.  In a lot of ways, if you ask me what kind of soccer player I want to be, I'd say just like Shannon.

So, to have her walking over to me directly was pretty unexpected, and alone would have put me on Cloud Nine.  But when she took off her left shoe and I realized what she was doing, I had that same feeling I had in Suwon - I had far exceeded any dreams I had let myself have.

"Anything Can Happen" is from Prime Mover, a song by Rush, off of their Hold Your Fire album.  "From the point of conception to the moment of truth, at the point of surrender to the burden of proof, from the point of ignition to the final drive - the point of the journey is not to arrive - Anything Can Happen."

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