(This is the time of year when the horse racing season for the Ivory Pine Syndicate is winding down, but the soccer season for the Rosevelt Soccer Club is gearing up. Here's a 90-day glimpse of the day in the life of a horse racing managing partner and soccer club administrator.)
Awoke, 5:38a
Worked at Westbrook High School, 7:30a-3:30p
Watched Crimson Pine's race, 2:30p-2:45p
Crimson has drawn the outside posts in most of his races in tough fields at Plainridge Park this year, and he finally drew an inside post in a tough field yesterday afternoon.
He paced pretty well, going a mile on a 5/8 mile track in 1:54.4. And he finished fifth in a an 8-pacer field, picking up a $750 purse check--or 5% of the $15,000 purse.
Rosevelt SC admin, 6p-7:30p
I met with our club's logistics coordinator Darren Thayer at Stockhouse in Westbrook. Darren and I have been working with each other since 2012, when both of us were elected to serve on the Westbrook Soccer League's board of directors. And Darren's representative of the longevity and commitment we have on Rosevelt SC's board of directors, coaching roster, and team rosters.
As our logistics coordinator, Darren primarily focuses on the management of our apparel ordering process and outdoor field logistics. One benefit of our Board's years of working together is we've been able to refine systems and processes to make our work a little more efficient every season, and we can usually communicate with each other in shorthand.
The new rollout we're working on this season is developing an online store for our coaches, so that they can use a gift card code to complete the apparel ordering and delivery process themselves with an apparel allowance. This would mean we'd remove ourselves as the middle person in all apparel orders, which we were able to do with our players' orders years ago.
It was great to return to Stockhouse, a sports bar in Westbrook, for the meeting because it's played an important role in our club's history. The Westbrook Soccer League used to host monthly poker tournaments sanctioned by the State of Maine as a regular fundraiser, and the proceeds from one of those tournaments in 2014 are what Rosevelt SC used as seed funds when we started out under the Westbrook Soccer League's umbrella.
The restaurant was also the site our club's first PR experience, which was more than ten years--and 50 pounds--ago.
Walked, 7:30p-7:45p
We're currently a three-driver, two-car household (our older daughter is working on buying her first car), so I had time to kill between the end of my meeting and my ride home.
When my wife Elisha and I were living in our first home on Rochester Street in Westbrook, walks around downtown on cold nights were my favorite form of exercise. I grew up in Westbrook, graduated from Westbrook High School, continued to live in Westbrook while I attended the University of Southern Maine, maintained a Westbrook-themed blog for years, bought my first house in Westbrook, and moved out of Westbrook in 2014.
So it was nostalgic to walk around downtown and just remember different buildings that used to be different things growing up.
Medeo European Food & Deli, for example, used to be Fruiti's Deli. And a handful of my soccer teammates at the University of Southern Maine used to rent the apartment above the deli, and that apartment (nicknamed "The Deli") was the de facto hangout spot for the team during the season. Which was convenient for me, because our first apartment was right down the street in the same building that now houses Weekend Anime and Games.
There's no better spot in Westbrook than Riverbank Park at night, when the lights are clear and the air is crisp. And Casa Novello has always been a warm, cozy Italian restaurant that's stood the test of time and was a great spot to get a nightcap while waiting for my ride.
Our club has four core communities, where 89% of our players on last season's rosters live. And Westbrook is our most core of those core communities, because it's the city where our club was born and where it took its first steps.
Asleep, 9:10p
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