Jan. 14 – By Jon Show. Future Man and I returned from Florida late last fall on one of our final travel lacrosse trips. It’s spanned nearly 10 years. Some 60 tournaments. Maybe 300-plus games.

There have been a lot of fun moments, for sure, and I remember all of them. There have been some frustrating ones too, and I remember all of them as well.

You don’t appreciate the highs if you don’t get some lows.

There was the night before his first travel tournament in the third grade when I set out my “uniform” of flip-flops, SPF shirt and sunflower seeds next to his uniform, which included blue cleats so I could figure out which kid he was on the field.

The next morning, playing on a team with older kids, he only played five minutes in three games. He cried on the car ride to lunch, and I cried with him. It’s hard to see someone you love feel sad about something they love so much.

The next year, playing with his own age group, we started off the summer in Chapel Hill.

We were staying in a quality of hotel that I’ve come to term as a “lacrosse hotel,” and began our tradition of grabbing an Outback steak the Friday night before tournaments when one was nearby.

The next year, tradition firmly entrenched, and when he was still too young to know the difference, we got steaks at a Ruby Tuesday because there was nothing else nearby. He took bites of the rubbery sirloin and pasty mashed potatoes, smiled, and confidently said, “Just as good as Outback, Dad.”

Win and you’re in

There were certainly losses over the years, but always enough wins to keep things fun.

One win I’ll always remember was a championship game played on horse fields near Charleston, when he scored four goals, including the tying goal before the final whistle, and his teammate won it in overtime.

It was Father’s Day, and he gave me the game ball his coach gave him. I think I still have it somewhere. I’m not much into mementos. I prefer the actual memories.

There were a lot of parent personalities on the sidelines over the years and really a surprising amount of booze. I never understood why someone wanted to get drunk on IPAs on a 90-degree summer morning.

It took me a few seasons of being a lacrosse parent, but eventually I found my place, as we all do in life. Turns out mine was located as far away from the midfield line as you could sit.

I preferred fall travel over summer. We could pack up supplies and elaborate tailgate meals into the truck, throw up a 10-foot tent and live like kings in places where royalty would never dare visit.

Oh, the places we’ve gone. Rarely were we anywhere you’d actually want to be, but you almost always enjoyed being there in some capacity. Sometimes the hotel lobby beers helped.

I wasn’t always the easiest to be around on our trips. I’ve never been the car ride home dad who yelled or overanalyzed his kid’s performance. I had no problem, however, corralling a less-than-stellar attitude or demanding obnoxiously early arrival times.

My performance as a parent often failed to live up to the standard of his play on the field. No one’s perfect, and I never claimed to be close to it. I tried.

Summer lovin’

I rarely talk about my kids’ sports with others. I sit by myself, content to watch them play without thoughts or opinions on the coaches or the referees or playing time.

Please allow me some grace, maybe just this once, to tell you about my favorite lacrosse season.

Last summer he was a rising junior, which is the first recruiting window for kids who want to play lacrosse in college.

We spent 24 days on the road in six weeks. Something like eight states up and down the Eastern Seaboard, staying in discount hotels and rentals that would make the country club crowd blush.

He produced a month of highlight reels that gave him the opportunity to spend six more weeks in the fall going through a recruiting process that was so turbulent it made the entirety of youth sports feel like a prosaic trance.

Before his first school visit this fall, he said goodbye to his lifeless grandfather in a nursing home and then drove straight to the airport with the Mother of Dragons, who rescheduled her life at the last minute to take him in my place.

After a couple of visits that didn’t go the way he hoped over those six weeks, he spent a cool late-autumn Saturday on a field outside Washington, D.C., torching two top teams filled with high-level recruits on a field surrounded by college coaches.

A short time later, on the seven-hour car ride home, came a phone call from a coach that made it all worth it to him, and he accepted an offer to play college lacrosse.

Dream on

He later remarked that I didn’t seem excited for him at the time, even though I was. The more I thought about it, I guess he was right, but it was because playing in college was always his dream. It was never mine.

My dream was just to go on the journey with him. To raise a man and not a lacrosse player.

I got to spend hundreds of hours on car rides making small talk with him. Got to lay around in who knows how many hotels watching Shark Tank and Adam Sandler movies when he was younger, and South Park now that he’s older.

We spent years discovering some of the best pizza and some of the worst. We can spot a good or a bad Outback from the parking lot.

We discussed countless life lessons like loyalty, resilience, respect, accountability and, ultimately, happiness. The game you love should put a smile on your face.

He may have never heard me yelling or obnoxiously cheering from the sideline, but he put countless smiles on mine.

His journey will continue — like every kid who grows up and leaves the nest — and mine, at his side, will come to an end next summer with his final travel season.

Looking back on it all, I guess he got his dream, and I got mine.

Jon Show lives in Robbins Park with his wife, who he calls “The Mother of Dragons.” Their 17-year-old son is “Future Man” and their 13-year-old daughter is “The Blonde Bomber.” Their dog is actually named Lightning.