True Life: A "Memoir"

[copperhorse21]

True Life: A "Memoir"

Not everyone discovers something that possesses the power to transform one’s life with such a powerful influence that the course of one’s life changes dramatically.

My discovery forever changed my life. I believe it’s for the better, of course. But, others might argue differently especially if they have different values than me.

As an elementary school teacher who also coached youth soccer at the high school level, I’d had plenty of time to consider the different directions I could pursue with my life.

Making gobs of cash never really interested me. I have always been content affording the essential necessities life requires of me: a basic home, a safe car, a fast computer, and good food. I know some think me foolish. But, for some reason I can’t really explain, it’s always been more important to push myself to become the best version of me I can be.

I’ve never aspired to be the kind of person who is at the forefront of the operations in order to receive the glamor and accolades that particular position imbues. For me, and it’s taken me a long time to determine this, I’m more of an introvert who happens to be caught in a career that requires extroverted behaviors.

The chance to go to work, coach some football, and come home to loved ones pretty much is an awesome day. However, even these things require reprieves. For that, I can watch football on the television, but with a wife who is an early bird while I’m a night owl, I needed to find an alternate activity.

I’d played FIFA on the computer. I even tried to simulate what it was like to be a manager, but it wasn’t detailed enough for me. I used Google to help me discover a computer game that might work better. It unearthed a gem called Football Manager out of the UK from a company called Sports Interactive.

Being a citizen of the United States, I’d never heard of it. I investigated the game, found the reviews to be fascinating, and purchased it directly from the parent company. FM 07 arrived with only the disc, no instructions, and plenty of confusion on my part.

I spent over 3 hours installing it and figuring out how the game worked once I created a manager. Still thwarted, I created a username and logged onto the web address provided during the opening credits of the game.

I happened upon the Forum and got plenty of help from some friendly folks in the General Discussion, in particular, Amaroq. From there, I started my journey and played some careers on the 07. FM 08 was released three months after I discovered 07. Immediately, I ordered the new game and, let’s say, the rest of my life changed forever.

How has it changed my life? I’ve become a much better coach, a much better writer, and a very knowledgeable consumer of footy on a global scale, including meeting people from all over the globe.

[copperhorse21]

Chapter One: The first 38 minutes (Just Getting Started)

One of the most relaxing activities I’ve come to appreciate in my life is the opportunity to turn off the lights, put on my headphones, and start up my Alienware computer, and let Football Manager whir through its processes nearly as fast as my brain does in regards to my own day.

All I want is a little escape. Why is that so selfish? Life is filled with all kinds of details designed specifically to test our patience and push us into new growth as people. Sometimes, we even achieve what we dream. However, exertions require recovery in order for growth to occur. Otherwise, burnout is the most probable outcome.

But more importantly, without claiming rest and recovery, most folks miss the moments of opportunity hidden within the mundane. They are so stressed out and focused on preparing to live in the next moment that they forget to appreciate the moment they are in right now.

Football manager is my rest and recovery and it costs me very little financially. Writing down my careers allows me to trial-run scenarios in my head and explore the potential outcomes in a relatively harmless environment. I can tell off my boss on the page in my fantasy when my reality requires me to swallow the vomit back down and bury it so I can keep the paychecks coming.

Whenever I get the chance to start a new career on FM 08, I still get excited because I find new ways to keep the game fresh, even though I’ve probably played at least 60 games on it. I alter the multitude of variables to establish a set of immutable parameters I will follow for the duration of this manager’s career.

Today, the questions are resolved yet again for the umpteenth time. Tonight, Duncan Conall has the opportunity to manage in 17 leagues in one of 6 nations. Everton is Duncan Conall’s favorite club because David Moyes is a fellow Scot. Conall’s got an “automatic” reputation but his goal is to start in Scotland’s lower leagues like Sir Alex Ferguson, another fellow Scot and see if he can make it to Everton and push them to glory ahead of Liverpool. It’s a blend of two challenges to become a manager worthy of merit.

It’s July 2007 again, not Independence Day 2012. Five years prior to today, I start an imaginary life as an unemployed Scot who goes by the name of Duncan Conall. Yes, I began writing a story about this character which some might have begun reading, but I got tired of writing match summaries and quit.

All is set and I know that stupid Jena, a 2^nd division club in Germany, will keep offering me jobs. I vacation past all the immediately available positions until they are all filled. Then, I save the game again and go on vacation until the artificial intelligence does its best to replicate the success of online dating sites whereby it matches the right club to my abilities, interest, and experience.

Reading is the first to fire Coppell. Of course, my application is rejected. Everton is next. For some reason, David Moyes is sacked the same day, December 2, 2007. If only I’d set my reputation as International manager, I might have had a chance to begin my career outside Liverpool. Instead, like life, the rejections keep coming and I’m left waiting to see what the future holds for me…

[tenthreeleader]

Love your approach here, Copper. A very intriguing idea to blend actual life and the game. Good luck with this, will be following as usual.

[copperhorse21]

10-3, your timing is impeccable because you are named in the next section...happy coincidence, I assure you. I also promise that I have no idea how this idea will work out, but all I'll say is that nothing risked is nothing gained...and I am intrigued by the challenge of writing it.

Chapter 2: 38 minutes-58 minutes (Lacks Match Practice)

Throughout the evening from my seated position on the straight-backed wooden desk chair I picked up at a second hand shop a year ago, I watch the locals in my city light off their version of fireworks while we are in the middle of an excessive heat warning with heat index temperatures of nearly 90 after 9 PM. Because my 14 year old dog is spooked by the explosions, she paces worriedly around the house in search of a quiet place to escape the unknown sounds that antagonize her.

Eventually, she gives up trying to be safe near me. I’m near a massive bay window that doesn’t block enough of the sounds for her liking. My dog disappears into the bedroom to be with my wife who’s already been in bed for an hour while the sun finally sets and the colorful lights splash across the night sky between the trees and homes in my residential neighborhood. I hope that some drunken idiot doesn’t light my neighborhood on fire because the sparks ignite the parched brown grass.

Why worry? My son’s friend just returned home from a camping vacation earlier in the day because someone lit off fireworks to celebrate. The sparks ignited the grasses out of sight from his campsite, but the grass fire had spread fast enough that he lost his tent and much of his camping gear in the process.

My fingers click clack on the keyboard that have seen me create the character of Copper Horse, my claim to fame on the storyboards. Metaphorically, it was a story that needed to be written. However, like the grassfire the claimed the boy’s camping gear, it spread wildly out of control and exploded into an epic tale that scorched the Stories Forum while it was being written.

In that save, I’d been snatched up by Blyth and wrote a backstory that entertained enough readers on the forum that they became writers who either wrote about the Blyth Spartans or they included my character in one of their own stories.

I’d like to think that it was my original idea to join two stories on the forum board that was something truly unique and helped to inspire others to do the same. However, it never would have happened had 10-3 not agreed to my proposal.

What occurred after that was something I hadn’t predicted when I offered it to him originally. In a way, it was the first time I’d pulled back the veil of anonymity offered me on the Internet to reach out in real-life to someone else and discuss writing in great detail.

10-3 and I developed a positive, professional relationship and both of us enjoyed the notoriety our competing stories created on the forum. It was also nice to watch him clean house during the awards ceremony while I was the bridesmaid, finishing second to him in every category. Terk’s supportive words of encouragement as well as the kind words from others sympathetic to the quality of my writing helped to make me even more determined to keep writing good stories.

Other stories have followed, but none left the lasting impression of Copper. The different characters and ideas explored in the trilogy (plus a short story) was a bittersweet resolution to a resurgence of who I was as a person in real-life because, over time, life had changed me imperceptibly into someone I hadn’t wanted to become. It was through writing that I finally realized this and began changing.

[Peacemaker7]

Are you dying?

[copperhorse21]

PM7: No, I'm not terminal. Just want to attempt to write a different kind of story on the forum boards from anything that I've written before. I'm getting a bit tired of writing FM Fiction and am writing the kind of story I'd actually like to read. I also want to attempt to write a story as fast as I play the game and this format seemed like it might resolve that issue.

Chapter 3: :58-1:15 (Lacks Match Practice)

Adele’s “Make You Feel My Love” now plays on Pandora. Fitting singer, I think. She’s a woman whose steadfast determination helped her overcome her anxieties to perform in public. Like her, I don’t like being the center of attention even though I’m a teacher and coach. I teach and coach because I must. It’s a compulsion I can’t stop because I have been taught so much by others that I can’t keep it all to myself. I need to share what I know with others because they need to have someone reach them.

That’s one of the purposes of this story. I have things to share about how important this game has become in my life and helped me to become a better person because of the people I meet online and in life who love football, the stories I create and read from others, and the risks I take within the game’s fantasy which help me to take similar risks in reality.

There are now 27 items in my mailbox and my in-game vacation is over. I’ve been hired by someone, but like a Christmas present, it’s unknown. The computer returns me to the reality of my fantasy.

Swindon rejects my application. Blackburn follows. Then rejections follow from Watford, Leeds, Bochum, and Morton. I’m disappointed Morton rejects me. I’d have liked to start in Scotland, but the First Division is a bit too high for an automatic reputation.

Albacete, Cardiff, and Southampton all sack their managers in the month of December, bringing the total to 11 managers getting sacked from December 2 through December 17. Some people claim that the game isn’t realistic, but I disagree. The number of sackings mirrors what I read in the headlines, especially when I see the number of managers under fire on the Job Security screen.

Well over 60 managers are insecure in their positions. Unfortunately, none of them are in the Scottish Third Division. Only one of them is in Scotland’s 2^nd Division and that is Brechin, currently sitting 10^th with 13 points and a -10 goal differential.

The club owner who deems me worthy of a job offer is Albacete’s. Currently, the club sits in 18^th place of LIGA BBVA, one place and a single point out of the relegation zone. I could take it, but I’ve played plenty of careers in Spain and dislike that the “B” teams all have to have matches scheduled manually in order for them to be held. I hate doing that, so I decline the offer to replace Quique Hernandez for a two year contract worth $5,250 weekly and resume my vacation.

In the next four days, my rejection list grows to include Southampton and Cardiff. The sackings happen faster than crimes in Gotham City. Crystal Palace, Colchester, Stoke, Real Sociedad, and Cadiz all sack their managers for a variety of reasons and the game stops again because Albacete offers me another contract for the same terms as before. Again, I reject them, as well as Spain for that matter and hope for something closer to “home” for my manager, Duncan Conall.

Colchester rejects me first. Then Crystal Palace, Stoke, and Cadiz tell me I’m not good enough before a club I’ve never heard of offers me a job. Rimini, in Italy’s Serie B, offers me 5K weekly to take over the reins after Leonardo Acori left them adrift in 16^th place.

Do I want Italy? I’ve checked the job security screen and see that East Sterlingshire’s Gordon Wylde is languishing just above Montrose in Scotland’s Third Division. Being the only club in the league with an insecure manager, I decided to reject co-owning players and the lucrative wage offer in order to hold out and hope East Sterlingshire opens up soon.

Who, in their right mind, rejects the first opportunity to work in favor of less money and even more obscurity? I guess that is the public servant in me who desires to be the champion of lost causes…and the line between my reality and my fantasy blurs again.

[tenthreeleader]

I hope that some drunken idiot doesn’t light my neighborhood on fire because the sparks ignite the parched brown grass.

Hey, you're right. I WAS mentioned!

But thanks for the thoughts, Copper. Combining our works was a great idea you had. Though RR is not yet finished talking about Mr. Horse.

[Peacemaker7]

Glad to hear it Copper, and yes interesting tack to take

[Makonnen]

Love the start. You're writing here has an immediate different quality than some of your other stories--there is more detail, more of a sense of place, more "thickness" to the setting. I'm immediately engaged at a different level than let's root for teamXXX and see if they can get promoted!

[copperhorse21]

Gentlemen, thanks for weighing in on this story so far. Both the glib and the weighty comments are welcomed... Mak, I'm glad you picked up on the tone of the story. This is supposed to be more like "literature" as opposed to "bestseller fiction". Of course, it's still my version of it so the quality might still be lacking compared to published authors. However, it's all part of the challenge, isn't it?

Chapter 4: 1:15-1:23 (Lacks Match Practice)

Albacete comes after me a 3^rd time, but I reject them outright. I hold out hope that Hamilton accepts my application and takes me on, but they don’t. Instead, they choose Paul Sturrock to take them forward. I check his profile and agree that he’s a better candidate than me.

What do I see the game doing? Doncaster dumps their manager, but so does Woking. I check Woking’s news item and see that Chris Gray has sacked Frank Gray, a 53 year old Scot who’s taken the club predicted to finish 12^th and led them all the way down the table and into the relegation zone.

Woking’s a professional club and its Chairman, Chris Ingram, has offered me a two year contract worth $825 weekly to help the club establish itself in the Blue Square Premier by the end of my contract. I accept the challenge.

I question if Ingram really likes Scots or what? But who am I to question the reasoning behind my new hire in the bowels of the Blue Square Premier?

Before choosing to accept the job, I’m interrupted by Taylor Swift’s “Superstar” playing on Pandora which is totally fitting considering what I anticipate doing with Woking as an experienced manager. What doesn’t fit is that the promising fantasy is interrupted by my 19 year old son’s ranting and raging while he turns the house upside down in search of his I-Pod that he requires for the road trip he’s about to embark on to a biological family reunion.

I call it a biological family reunion because the people he’s going to visit are no longer family according to the letter of the law. Originally, I met my wife on a blind date when her son was four years old. The movie, Jerry Maguire, was the inspiration for me to even accept the date in the first place. Cuba Gooding, Jr’s words of encouragement to Tom Cruise’s character echo in my mind as I write this, “It’s just a date. You don’t have to marry her.”

Like the movie, I fell in love with my wife and her kid. Eventually, we married and became a “family in life, but not the law” because legally, he wasn’t mine. After four years without any contact of any kind from his biological father—no visits, no phone calls, no cards or gifts of any kind, I asked both of them if I could adopt. They agreed and, finally, became a legal family.

Two years ago, the grandmother invited him to the family reunion. My wife went with him even though he was legal adult, just in case. All went “well” and he returned. It sucked letting him go, but the old adage of letting someone go and waiting for them to come back ring had to be executed. He came back unimpressed with his “sperm donor”, but liked many of the rest of them. So, he departs today for a four day adventure and both my wife and I hate every minute of it.

My wife’s in the other room right now trying to talk him down from the ceiling and the dog scurries underfoot to escape his barking, his swearing, and his stomping around.

Will the combination of the excessive heat and the mutual worry my wife and I will share provide me with plenty of time to ply my trade with Woking as a pleasant distraction to our undesirable reality?

[copperhorse21]

Chapter 5: 1:23-1:38 (Lacks Match Practice)

Fantasy and reality collided once again. My goal was to play FM for about 5 hours, but life interfered. My son left on his trip and my wife and I prepared to go to the hospital for her annual mammogram. Granted, it’s supposed to be routine, but I know better because my wife is diagnosed with OCD.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder affects her in ways that are textbook, but not stereotypical. Instead of obsessing about cleanliness, she gets into thinking loops and worries about things she can’t control. Of course, she knows she’s doing it, but she can’t stop herself. Right now, she’s worried that she’s going to contract breast cancer and she’s upset that she has poor eating habits because cancer cells feed on sugars within the body.

I know my role. I turn off the computer, skip lunch because making it would conflict with her discussion about our son leaving on a trip she despises and blames herself for making it so he is on the road trip. We spent over an hour yesterday discussing it, venting our hatred and resentment about it, and then working through it to the point where we can grasp at the positives the trip will provide—namely, he’ll get the chance to road trip on his own for the first time and achieve this important coming-of-age step.

We get in the car. My wife enters the address on the satellite navigation system because it makes her feel comfortable knowing where we are going. I’ve been there before and know the directions already. However, with the construction on the highways in our metropolitan area between our home and our final destination, she needs to know how far we are with how much time we have left available to make her appointment on time. Without this vital step in the process, she frets and worries.

We arrive safely and enter the reception area. She’s processed and we travel to the waiting area in Mammography. Five minutes after our arrival, she leaves me and enters the restricted area for her appointment.

Twenty minutes later, we are back on the road and returning home with temperatures in the triple digits. I’ve wolfed down a fast food lunch in the hospital cafeteria unbeknownst to her because, if she knew, she’d needlessly blame herself for not feeding me. My silence just saved us both a bunch of time and worry.

Immediately after getting home, my better half logged on to a website to get her students’ scores in Advanced Placement Language, a nationally given test in which students may be able to obtain university credit while in high school if they score high enough on the exam.

After obsessing over the scores, she discusses her frustrations with me and complains that her scores are not as high as she wants even though her students score above the national average even though 97% of her students took the exam. Many of her colleagues only muster around 50% student participation rates, but have slightly higher scores.

She asks me to join her while she distracts herself with two episodes of the television show, Bones. I really want to get established with Woking, in order to catch a break, but I can offer her this selfless act. She’s offered me plenty of selfless acts already so the least I can offer her is this one in return.

She’s still agitated and I offer to distract her with the Barca v Real Madrid La Liga Match I’ve been saving on the DVR for over two months. I’d forgotten the result, but it was new to her and she oohed and ahhed at all the right places, mesmerized by Messi’s skill, amazed by the pace and precision of the passing, and hollering at the babies rolling around the pitch pretending to be hurt.

Eventually, she goes to bed after reading some of Ken Kesey’s, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I kiss her goodnight and whisper sweet nothings in her ear before departing to my sanctuary out at my desk so I can write down this reality in hopes of getting to the fantasy of Football Manager.

Chris Ingram welcomes me to the club, tells me his Cardinals are willing to give me the full backing of the club’s board. I know already that money talks and the assistant coach is worried about the defense. I inspect the clubs finances and discover the club has already lost 150K this season and it’s not even transfer window time. The graph of the finances looks like a ski jump and the club’s due to face Altrincham in a few days’ time.

I assign the coaches and discover the existing staff doesn’t have adequate tactical coaching. I flip through the search profile in search of coaches who are in the UK area and unemployed. Two catch my fancy, and I offer them contracts.

For good measure, both of them are Scots and the camaraderie Duncan Conall will develop surely would make for an interesting story. Just for good measure, I search for a Scout too. I find one who will come to the club for the wages we can offer. He’s another Scot. I sack one of the existing Scouts immediately and then examine the roster for a player who will make a decent captain.

For this game, I choose my captains by using the personal screens for every player. Two of them say they are willing to help the club strive to improve. One of those players, Matt Ruby (DC), is given the captaincy despite being 21. The other, Adam Green (DL/WBL), is 23 and is named vice-captain.

Immediately, all hell breaks loose and the only ones who suddenly don’t have very poor morale and PR issues are the captain and the vice-captain. Check that. Matt Ruby’s whining about being too damn young to be captain.

I’d love to tell him, “Hey! Buck up! Life doesn’t give a good goddam about your feelings on the matter. Sometimes, it gives you a damn opportunity before you are ready, but you need to accept the risk and see what happens as a result.”

Of course, my “advice” falls on nobody’s ears—not even mine. But, since I’ve thought them, they become part of my subconscious and I know I should be following my own damn advice in my own damn life.

Now that I’ve written it down publicly, I’m under pressure to make it happen.

That’s how Football Manager works. Even if my wife does come back with horrible news regarding her mammography or my son returns from his trip with a newfound respect for his sperm donor, I’ve got to take the risks associated with whatever comes my way in reality and do my damn best.

[copperhorse21]

Though I'd love to keep writing this story as it will be quite interesting to explore as an author, the injury to my hand prevented me from really making headway on this. Even though I can type with all ten fingers, I know I won't have the time to continue publishing regularly. I'm coaching two soccer teams at the youth level, running a skills development program, and teaching English classes to approximately 150 8th grade students. Time for writing will be scattered at best and I think that I'll be able to keep up with my other story at this time more effectively.

So, until the summer of 2013, this story will most likely be put on hiatus. It's not that involved yet, so it will be easier to resume in the future, should I still have the energy/time to do it, then.

[Makonnen]

Too bad! Looking forward to you returning to it whenever you're moved to do so ...