Alabama Sports Festival

Sent in by Jeremy Puckett

About 5 years ago when Adam was 21, I invited him to play in a soccer tournament in Alabama called the Alabama sports festival. This tournament basically consists of all the best mens league soccer teams in the state that come to play in a 3 day tournament. The team I had been playing with entered the tournament and at the last minute had a few people drop out so I decided to call and see if adam could play. He said yes but since he wasn’t an Alabama resident we had to do a little doctoring on his application form so he could play. My teammates weren’t initially over excited about him coming because they didn’t know his skill level. Their tune changed real quick after that first game. I think he had 2 goals and an assist and flat out dominated the other team. The referees at this tournament were extremely lax in their foul calling which was like adding gasoline to the fire adam had already set. After adam figured this out in the first game he adjusted his playing style to something in between soccer and rugby. There were more bodies tossed around in that game than any other game I have ever been a part of. The team we were playing was quite a bit younger than us and they really started gunning for adam by the second half. There was this one particular play in the game where adam had the ball and was dribbling across the field when he noticed this guy on the other team coming full steam at him from behind to take him out. I guess the guy didn’t realize that adam knew he was coming which was a critical mistake on his part. Adam left the ball, quickly turned around and dropped his shoulder just as the guy was going to body check him and it literally looked like the guy ran into a brick wall at full speed. After adam hit him he proceeded to give the guy a 1 second stare that said,”lesson learned”. The timing on adam’s part was impeccable and was one of the hardest hits I have ever seen on the soccer field. No foul was called and play went on but the coolest thing about it was that jonathan was video taping the whole thing. When we watched it on tv when we got home, you could hear everyone in the background saying, “ooohhhhh” right after the hit took place. I think the three of us rewound and played that clip at least 30 times. It was great.