Did Anyone Else Grow Up Without Soccer

I know soccer is the world's most popular sports, but I grew up in a part of the United States where soccer did not exist. We had no youth soccer leagues. It wasn't played at school. I think the first time most of us ever saw an actual soccer game was when the United States hosted the World Cup in 1994.

I contrast that to my kids who have grown up with soccer leagues starting as early as 4-years-old.

I've always found it weird that I grew up with all of the modern luxeries--cable TV, video games, every electronic you can think of--but soccer wasn't just unpopular, no one knew anything about it. We finally got a youth soccer league in my hometown after the '94 World Cup, but there were only a handful of transplants from large cities that had ever played soccer, so we couldn't ever find a coach for the team for my age group (16-17 year olds) and we just had to improvise, literally just kick the ball and hope to get it in other team's net. On defense, we played a mix of defenses we pulled American football and basketball (think full court press) and drew a lot of red cards and yellow cards. It was interesting.