Essay

The Sky Above the Well

SoccerHearth Dad · Published October 27, 2026 · 9 min read

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A girl sits beside a soccer ball on a quiet field beneath a wide sunset sky.

The girls on the opposing team seemed to have more time with the ball than ours did. One would receive a pass with a defender approaching, turn away from pressure, and find a teammate. Another would use a stepover or a quick change of direction to create space. Others did nothing particularly flashy. They simply knew where to move, when to release the ball, and how to make the next play. What struck me was not one exceptional player. It was how many of them seemed comfortable doing these things. My daughter's team was facing an opponent from Kansas in the Girls Academy. We lost by several goals. The following day brought another difficult defeat against a different team from Kansas. For the past few years, I had watched my daughter score against familiar opponents. That weekend, I found myself watching the other girls, wondering how they had learned to play with such confidence. An old story from my childhood came back to me, about a frog living at the bottom of a well. The Sky We Know The frog looks upward and sees a circle of sky framed by the walls of the well. Each day, the same patch of blue appears above it. The frog knows the light, the clouds, and the darkness that follows. Having never climbed out, it believes that small opening is the whole sky. The sky it sees is real. What it does not know is how much lies beyond the walls. For a few years, Fargo–Moorhead had been the soccer world I knew. My daughter began playing soccer at seven. Soon, our family evenings included practices, and our weekends included games. She learned quickly, scored regularly, and often stood out against the opponents she faced. I was proud of her. I still am. I also remember the other parents standing along those fields. Some had daughters who scored even more goals, collected tournament medals, or were consistently recognized as their teams' best players. We watched our children grow, compared their progress with what we saw around us, and began imagining what might come next. For some families, that meant high school soccer. For others, college scholarships, Division I programs, or even professional dreams. But I wonder how many of us understood the larger soccer world against which those dreams would eventually be measured. Our children played real games against real opponents. Their achievements mattered. Yet many of the strongest teams from larger competitive environments were not part of the tournaments we regularly attended. A child can be among the strongest players in her community without being among the strongest players of her age nationally. Both things can be true. Those games made me think differently about a dream my daughter had carried for several years. A Dream Beyond Fargo When my daughter was eight or nine, she began admiring Sophia Smith. She watched her play and learned about her journey through Stanford University to professional soccer and the U.S. national team. Sophia later became Sophia Wilson after her marriage, but in our family, she is still Sophia Smith. That is the name my daughter first knew. Somewhere along the way, Stanford became part of my daughter's dream, too. She is still a child, dreaming of playing soccer at Stanford University. There is something beautiful about the distance between those two facts. I know how few girls ever reach a program like Stanford, even after years of hard work. But I cannot bring myself to tell her to dream smaller. I also cannot promise her that effort alone will take her there. I want to help her understand the journey while leaving her free to discover where it leads. I have seen how differently a child's ability can be recognized. This fall, my daughter ran cross-country alongside middle school and high school runners. She finished among the top twenty, the only runner from her school's middle school and junior varsity groups to do so. Within two days, the high school coaches invited her to practice with the varsity runners, and she went. In running, the clock told a simple story. Her time stood out, and someone noticed. Soccer has no such clock. Watching those Kansas teams, I thought about the distance between the soccer my daughter had known and the soccer she hoped one day to play. A girl who scores two or three goals against familiar opponents may struggle to create one chance against a stronger team. She has not suddenly become less talented. The game is asking more of her. I wish more parents in Fargo–Moorhead whose children have ambitious soccer dreams could witness games like these. I wanted those parents to see what I had seen—not to discourage them, but to help them understand what their children might need next. And even this was only a small part of the soccer world. The Girls Academy has twelve regional conferences across the country. I had watched teams from just one part of it. I wondered how many remarkable young players were competing in places I had never seen. I had believed that finding a stronger soccer environment in Minnesota would bring my daughter closer to the world she dreamed about. It did. But there was still more sky beyond what I could see. The Conditions for Growing Joining a Minnesota Girls Academy team opened a larger soccer world for my daughter. But we still lived in Fargo. She could attend one team practice each week, along with weekend games. Many of her teammates lived close enough to participate in the full training schedule. At games, I watched the girls try to find one another, make runs, and respond to pressure. I thought about the ordinary practices where those understandings are built, week after week, until movements become familiar. My daughter was sharing the competition, but not all the preparation. I sometimes think about a tree that flourishes in the warmth of California or Arizona but struggles through a North Dakota winter. Its growth depends not only on what it is capable of becoming, but also on the conditions around it. Children are more adaptable than trees, of course. Fargo has given my daughter friendships, a community, and a childhood filled with experiences beyond soccer. I would not trade those things lightly. I wondered how much more she might learn if she could regularly train with players who challenged her the way those opposing teams had. I thought, too, about other Fargo–Moorhead families with ambitious young players. Not everyone could travel regularly to the Twin Cities. Work, money, and family responsibilities made that impossible for some. Their children’s potential was no less real. I wished there were more ways for those children to face stronger competition and find good training without leaving their communities behind. I kept thinking about what was missing from my daughter’s soccer environment. More practices. Stronger opponents. Better chances to learn. Then I began to recognize something I had overlooked. What I Had Been Asking of Her When my daughter was younger, she scored often. Before games, I would sometimes tell her to score. If I remembered how well she had played against an opponent before, I might even encourage her to score more than once. I thought I was giving her confidence. I had seen what she could do, and I wanted her to believe in herself. When she scored, we celebrated. Those were happy moments, and without realizing it, I had begun to expect them. Then she entered the Girls Academy. The defenders were stronger. Space disappeared more quickly. She had less time to make decisions, and goals were harder to come by. But my expectations had traveled with us from Fargo. I still wanted her to score, to stand out, to show everyone the player I knew she could be. When she did not score, I noticed her disappointment. Sometimes I wondered whether she was also worried about disappointing me. I had meant those words as encouragement. What if she had begun hearing them as something she was expected to deliver? I had wanted her to show everyone how good she was. But perhaps what she needed most was the freedom to discover how good she could become. I was part of her environment, too. I could see that she needed more opportunities to train against stronger players. But perhaps she also needed a father who could watch her lose the ball without showing disappointment. Someone who understood that attempting a difficult turn, even unsuccessfully, might be a sign of growth. Like many soccer parents, I had spent time and money, and driven countless hours, to support her dream. I had done it willingly. But I began to wonder whether those sacrifices, together with my hopes, had become expectations she could feel. My daughter's dream is not a debt she owes me. If I want her to learn from stronger players, I must allow her to struggle against them. And if I want her to keep loving soccer, she must know that my pride in her does not depend on the scoreboard. Beyond the Well I wish more families with ambitious young players could experience that larger soccer world, even when what they discover is uncomfortable. We should be proud when our children succeed in Fargo–Moorhead. Their goals, friendships, and achievements matter. But if their dreams extend beyond our community, we must help them see what lies ahead without making them feel that what they have already done is small. For me, though, the harder lesson has been personal. I had taken my daughter beyond the soccer world we knew, but part of my own thinking was still inside it. I had carried the expectations of a father watching his daughter score against familiar opponents into games where she was being asked to learn something new. The well was not simply Fargo. Some of its walls were expectations I had built myself. Helping a child pursue a bigger dream requires us not only to widen her world, but also to reconsider the expectations we place upon her. I still want my daughter to work hard, pursue her dream, and discover what she can do. But I also want her to have the freedom to be a child, to make mistakes, and to find joy in the game. There will be games when she struggles, when she does not score, and when the players around her seem far ahead. When those days come, I hope I remember what this season has taught me. And when she looks toward the sideline, I want her to see a father who is glad to be there, not someone waiting for her to prove something. I cannot promise her Stanford. I cannot promise she will become the next Sophia Smith. But I can help her see beyond the small circle of sky we once knew. And when she looks up, I want her to understand both how far away the stars are and how much of the world is still open to her.

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