ys, Pyke said. Off the two six-day breaks we had, they d

As President Obama might say, my daughter is a badass. I dont say that just because shes my daughter. As the president did when he met the members of the U.S. womens national soccer team after they won the World Cup last year, I offer that description up in the broadest of terms.That same term applies to many of my daughters teammates through years of club soccer that have seen us travel around the South and across the country. Ive seen them get knocked down and bounce right back up. Ive seen them limp around the field, trying to shake off a twisted ankle to stay in the game. Ive seen them suffer difficult losses and play in pouring rain and frigid cold.Im glad my daughter, Lucy, is part of it. And Im glad I have been there to see it.I am a soccer dad, twice over. My son is in college now, but he also played travel soccer for years. I loved watching him play and seeing his confidence grow as he kept moving up to better teams through the years. But soccer wasnt as critical to my relationship with my son as it has been with my daughter.We have some differences, she and I. My daughter has a clear sense of fashion, while I shop the clearance rack at Kohls. She uses her phone for endless snaps and selfies, while I use mine to check sports scores and play Words with Friends. And there are certain areas where conversations between fathers and daughters are tricky at best. Soccer, though, has provided us with a shared experience since she first enjoyed orange slices and juice boxes at halftime and ran through tunnels created by the parents outstretched arms after games.I didnt play the game growing up, but Ive come to appreciate it and all that its meant to my kids. Unlike the sports I grew up with, there are no timeouts in soccer. Players have to make hundreds of decisions during a game -- without a coach telling them what to do -- about when and where to pass, when to attack and when to pull back and defend. To have any chance at success, they have to work with and rely on their teammates. Its a game that values speed, technical ability, teamwork, intelligence, stamina, athleticism and the willingness to be physical. (Lucy points with pride to the various bruises and scrapes on her legs, treasuring each one as a memento from various high school and club games.)But where the game has helped me connect with my daughter is off the field, on the drives to and from practice or the road trips to games and tournaments. Weve driven through a West Virginia snowstorm to get to an indoor soccer tournament in Detroit in February, flown to Seattle to play against some of the best teams in the country and spent the holidays in Orlando more times than I care to count. Ive rinsed out stinky jerseys and soccer socks in hotel sinks and made late-night runs to get Gatorade. Im always up for arranging some sort of side trip, having nothing to do with soccer, to check out something interesting in the area.All that travel translates into great family time -- time to play card games, talk about how schools going or watch HGTV together in the hotel room. Occasionally the talk is about soccer.One topic of frequent discussion is the U.S. womens national team. We rarely miss a chance to watch them play, even if its just a friendly on TV. The women on that team are rock stars to my daughter and her teammates, and I will never forget the thrill it was for Lucy when she got a photo with Megan Rapinoe, her favorite player, when the team played in North Carolina a couple of years ago. So while Im curious to see how Michael Phelps will do in the pool and whether anyone can beat Usain Bolt in the 100 meters, my daughter and I will be most interested in the U.S. womens soccer team as they go after their fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal in Rio later this summer.I wondered whether the dads of the women on the U.S. national team felt the same as I did about soccer helping their relationship with their daughters. I managed to touch base with Ken Krieger, father of defender Ali Krieger, and Vincent Dunn, father of midfielder and forward Crystal Dunn. Not surprisingly, they also had tales of weekends spent traveling to tournaments and car rides home after games or practices spent listening as their daughters recounted their experience.Both fathers were most interested in talking about who their daughters have become off the field. The thing Im most proud of has absolutely nothing to do with soccer, said Vincent Dunn, a finance attorney in New York. Crystal is just a genuinely good person. She cares about other people and is a fun person.Krieger, a former player who has built a long and successful career as a youth soccer and basketball coach in and around Washington, D.C., recounted an experience years ago when his daughter got a chance to see Mia Hamm play. What she remembered from that day was watching Hamm sign autographs for what seemed like hours afterward. She told her father that she would do the same thing one day if she ever got the chance. Im usually in the bleachers for an hour after her games, Ken Krieger told me, waiting for her to finish signing autographs.My wife and I often talked as our kids moved up (and occasionally down) the ranks of club soccer about how we werent interested in raising soccer players. We wanted to raise kids who would go on to become good adults. Soccer has been one way to do that, imparting lessons in the value of determination, hard work and sportsmanship.Theyve learned how to handle defeat as well as victory. Theyve learned that the calls dont always go your way and that theres nothing to be gained by complaining about it. Theyve learned that while sometimes you have to figure things out for yourself, there are other times when you can rely on your teammates or, more importantly, be there for your teammates. Those are lessons that will serve them well long after their playing days are over.I will also treasure the bonds soccer has helped me build with Lucy. There are plenty of things she would rather talk with her mother about, and Im OK with that. But we have our own connection, and I will never complain about the money and time our family has spent on soccer.Bill Krueger is an editor at the alumni magazine at N.C. State University, where U.S. head coach Jill Ellis started her coaching career as a graduate assistant for the Wolfpack womens soccer team. Miles Bridges Jersey . Artturi Lehkonen, Joni Nikko and Ville Leskinen had the other goals for Finland (1-0) while Juuse Saros stopped 28 shots. Tim Robin Johnsgard had the lone goal for Norway (0-2). Willy Hernangomez Hornets Jersey . The FA rejected Wilsheres appeal that the length of his punishment was "clearly excessive" and said Thursday his suspension begins with immediate effect. He will miss league matches against Chelsea on Monday and West Ham on Dec. https://www.hornetslockerroom.com/Malik-Monk-City-Edition-Jersey/ . -- The Sacramento Kings are set to become the first major professional sports franchise to accept Bitcoin virtual currency for ticket and merchandise purchases. Miles Bridges Hornets Jersey . The 18-year-old American had five birdies in her bogey-free round for a 17-under total of 196. Lee held the overnight lead but mixed three birdies with two bogeys for a 70. Percy Miller Hornets Jersey . -- Ken Appleby made 32 saves for his first shutout of the season to lead the Oshawa Generals to a 2-0 win over the Belleville Bulls on Wednesday in Ontario Hockey League action. Two sides of the Adelaide Football Club show themselves in the aftermath of a 62-point elimination final thrashing of North Melbourne on Saturday night.First there is respect: in the form of a guard of honour for the quartet of retiring Kangaroos, led dolefully off Adelaide Oval by the AFLs games record holder Brent Harvey.Later, there is ambition: the team song sung in recognition of a finals victory to advance the Crows to the same staging post they reached in 2015 is a rather flat rendition, reeking of the sense that more remains to be done. A bad game against West Coast in the last minor round tipped Adelaide out of the top four, but it did not dent the belief that this team is capable of much more.Weve touched on that already as a group, said Tom Lynch, a key man in the Crows formidable forward line and kicker of four goals on Saturday night. We want big things this year and this is just the first box weve been able to tick but weve got three more games hopefully to win.That [Eagles] game was really disappointing, it was really not our way. Sometimes after those games you just want to get out there straight away. It was great to have a six-day break but we just had the bye and it probably made us think about it a bit more, but to the boys credit we were able to put that behind us and focus on this week and put on a pretty good performance.We had some proud guys who were disappointed the way they played individually, but as a collective as well. We were able to rectify that, weve been able to bounce back from most of our losses this year and have good wins. Hopefully we can get on a bit of a roll now and have an impact.The Crows were heavily favoured to beat North Melbourne with good reason - the Kangaroos had limped into the finals, and the Adelaide deficiencies exposed by West Coast were unlikely to be tested by a team with so few recent wins behind them. But they took their time to find fluency: big advantages in possession and forward entries were offset by indifferent kicking for goal, and enough turnovers to mean the game was overmuch in the balance at halftime.Finals footy is always about contests and pressure, said Lynch, and thats what we base our game on and turning the ball over. At times we wished wed kicked a little straighter but most of those shots were long shots, so it wasnt like we were inaccurate and missing easy goals.Well have to look at that and address how we can get some deep entries. When we needed to put the foot down we were able to tonight, but theyre a quality side and to their credit they were able too keep working hard in the contest.ddddddddddddWhen the arm wrestle was in play we were just able to hold them at bay a bit more than they were for us.Over time, Adelaide found their range. Forward entries did get deeper, shots on goal were more precise, and the Adelaide Oval faithful found their most raucous voice to send their team hurtling towards Sydney with plenty of momentum.Lynch and the rest of the forward line ended the night looking threatening once more, not the thwarted combination restricted to 10.11 by the Eagles. A final tally of 21.15 was near enough to twice as good. This was as much down to team play as individual heroics, though Eddie Betts six goals were as memorable as ever.Thats a strength of our whole forward line, guys are really trying to bring others into the game and a really unselfish group, Lynch said. To play in that front six or anywhere on the ground thats the mindset youve to have otherwise you just dont fit in.Tex [Taylor Walker] and Eddie had great nights, Josh Jenkins competed really hard as did Mitch McGovern and Charlie Cameron was electric - those guys all played their role and made sure when it was their moment to step up they were able to do so.How much this was to do with the pre-finals bye is a question still swirling. Certainly Kyle Cheney and Luke Brown were better for the week off. But in the considered opinion of the coach Don Pyke the break had offered another important edge for his men - the chance to train with both quality and quantity, at a time of the year when injury management and recovery schedules can impact skills and team patterns.We had opportunities to have four really good sessions with our guys, Pyke said. Off the two six-day breaks we had, they dont allow you the opportunity to train too much. The last two weeks weve had some really good training.Its like a cricketer going out to bat, he wants to be in the nets and hitting balls so hes confident he can do it. Our guys like to be able to train so we can train the things we need to work on and take confidence from that in the games. The two weeks gave us an opportunity to do that.The cricket metaphor was apt for a club now overmuch at home on Adelaide Oval. To go any further in this finals series the Crows will need to play straight and punish the loose balls at the SCG, against a chastened Sydney Swans. That match will provide another chance to measure the club in terms of respect and ambition. ' ' '