Around the time my father’s father, Max Gutstein, brought beer back to New York, my maternal grandfather, Emil Ringel, clipped around Brooklyn, looking for work. He had wended his way through Ellis Island a scant three days earlier, with little money in his pocket, after crossing the
The ball, as he told the story, rolled away from the players
onto his shoe. He couldn’t understand the goalkeeper, who beckoned for the ball’s
return, but when Grandpa took a few steps back, the goalkeeper established
himself in the goalmouth, and waved, challenging my grandfather to beat him
with a shot. Emil, in suit and tie and coat and hat, ran to the ball, and with
the strike of his life, bent it around the goalkeeper, who dove into mud. A
fellow on the far sideline, who’d watched the ball swerve into the netting of
the goal, jogged across the impoverished field toward my grandfather, a whistle
around his neck. The team gathered, too. One of the players spoke a little
Polish or a little Yiddish, and the fellow, able to make himself understood,
described the situation. He, both coach and foreman, offered Emil a factory
job, and a position on the factory’s football team.
We would term this arrangement “semi-professional”, as my
grandfather earned a stipend to play on the company team, the Brooklyn Red
Sparks, which competed against other company teams around New York . I don’t know the factory’s name, or
what the factory produced, or how many years my grandfather toiled there. I know
that he dribbled the ball fast, attacking from the center or the wing. I know
that he scored, a lot. Grandpa stood no more than five foot seven, and weighed no
more than a hundred forty, but when I met him—me, a toddler; he, in his
sixties—his sinewy muscular arms astonished me. During World War II, he assembled
aircraft, and afterwards, began a small commercial art business, but his football
adventure bestowed him with a classic American beginning. “Is a great country”,
he would say, with a thick accent. “You kick a ball: you get a job!”
The blogger and his grandfather. Also pictured: the
only ball, a sand ball, my grandpa could not juggle!
only ball, a sand ball, my grandpa could not juggle!
My grandfather could juggle most anything round. He juggled
a football, of course, but also a nerf ball, whiffle ball, and tennis ball. I
once—briefly—owned a hacky sack, and he juggled it, too, quite a few times:
foot, knee, and forehead. Through my mother, Ruth, he passed down his physique
to me, but I’ve largely underutilized it, except for a few moments, perhaps.
Once, I attended a youth camp sponsored by the old NASL club, the Washington
Diplomats, where I had kick-arounds with several Dips players, including the
legendary Johan Cruyff, who said kind words to me about how I played. Cruyff,
in that moment, didn’t exactly speak to me,
but to the poor kid, Emil Ringel, who
grew up in Poland, playing the sport with a football fashioned from rags. My
grandfather could smile at you, and you’d want to put your arm around his
shoulder, and have someone snap a photograph of you, standing beside a man who
smiled in such a fundamentally kind way.
Sports Week #2 of 5: The Landover Football Team
Sports Week #3 of 5: Wilfried & The Swans
Sports Week #4 of 5: Who I Heckled As a Young Man
Sports Week #5 of 5: Draws
Sports Week #2 of 5: The Landover Football Team
Sports Week #3 of 5: Wilfried & The Swans
Sports Week #4 of 5: Who I Heckled As a Young Man
Sports Week #5 of 5: Draws
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