My son and I had the pleasure of watching a remarkable soccer game Friday night here at Duke. They played against an impressive and highly-ranked Maryland team. Having heard Coach John Kerr speak in advance about the game and how he was approaching it when he visited our “World Cup and World Politics” class at Duke on Thursday, it was thrilling to see the tactics and verve of the Duke players produce a decisive victory.
At the beginning of the second half my son decided he wanted to draw the game. Sitting on the bleachers, he made the picture above of Duke scoring a goal. A few minutes later, after Duke scored their first goal to the roar of an ecstatic crowd, he announced happily: “I drew it, and then it happened!” “Draw some more pictures where they score goals!” I said, seconded by Duke fans sitting next to us. And he did: two more, just as Duke scored two more goals (with one of them called offside by the referee). Every fan has to find their own way to support a team, I suppose. With full consciousness that I am heavily biased, I feel like these pictures do well capture the motion, physicality and beauty of the game we saw.