>Bell of the Ball

>Remember when I wrote last week about Hubs’s loud and boisterous bell-ringing at our girls’ soccer games? Two days later, our opponents’ parents struck back! The story is in this week’s Nashville Scene. Read the full text of the column below….

Hell’s Bell

In my five years as a soccer stepmom, extensive observation has allowed me to divide the players’ parents into some fairly disturbing categories.

There are the sideline screamers, hard-faced men (and occasionally, women) who pace the sidelines yelling advice at the players and epithets at the referees.

There are the bleacher bitches, moms who cluster together and gossip about their neighbors and mutual friends, stopping every so often to look vaguely at the field and say, “Oh, is my Muffy back out there again? What number is she, anyway?”

There’s the bland brigade, parents who politely clap after every play and call out meticulously positive shows of support, like, “Good hustle, Mary Jane!” and “It’s just a little blood, Haley, you’ll be fine!”

And then there’s the bell ringer. The man who brings a gigantic hand bell to every game and rings it after goals until ears bleed and small children sob for mercy. That man happens to be my husband.

To say he’s obsessed with our girls’ soccer games is an understatement. I don’t think Hubs has missed a single game and the damage to my eardrums tells me he’s definitely never forgotten the bell. I can appreciate the man’s fanaticism for such a noble cause, but I don’t always appreciate what comes with it, like the phrase, Owls Leave Carcasses! scrawled in paint on the back window of my car last week.

“Why did you do that, Hubs?” I complained. “It’s disgusting and it doesn’t make sense. Do you realize how many stares I’ve gotten on the road?”

“The Bellevue Owls will know what it means, and that’s all that matters!” Hubs insisted. “Show some school spirit.”

For the girls’ sake, I put up with the window graffiti and the ear splitting bell. That’s more than I can say for the opposing teams’ parents.

“Gah dog! That bell has gotta go!” yelled an angry woman the other day after Hubs engaged in some particularly vehement bell ringing. “It’s freakin’ annoying!”

Other parents have tried more circuitous routes.

“I’m Sasha’s father,” an opposing player’s dad said once, shaking Hubs’s hand. “Our daughters used to play rec soccer together.”

“Oh hey, I remember you,” Hubs smiled.

“You must stop ringing that bell,” the father continued.

“Yeah, it’s pretty loud, isn’t it?” Hubs chuckled.

But the dad wasn’t laughing. “You. Must. Stop. Ringing. That. Bell.” As he stalked off, Hubs gave his bell a few retaliatory shakes in his direction.

After all, Hubs reasons, at least some of these whiners are the same people who put on football jerseys and scream their heads off in living rooms and stadiums across the state. And if it’s socially acceptable to show fanatical devotion to a group of jocks that will never know of their existence, why not show that same passion for their own kids’ teams?

But while he makes a great case for himself, it doesn’t make the evil stares from the stands any easier to bear. Particularly when we play our archrivals, Martin Luther King Magnet School.

Their team is excellent, so it was a miracle when we beat them in the first round of the playoffs last week. I like to think the bell had something to do with the win. Hubs rang it so hard that the resulting booms convinced me he’d broken the sound barrier at least twice.

Unfortunately, we had to play MLK again this week to make it to the finals. When we arrived at the field on game day, Hubs grinned wickedly at the rows of parents in the stands and pulled his bell from a gym bag. But in a surprise move, the parents on the away side reached into their own pockets and pulled out… kazoos.

Readers, I have a word of advice. Never play a kazoo when you’re pissed off. The result sounds very much like a helium addict puking his guts out. As the air filled with that strange and awful sound, Hubs began ringing his bell in a desperate attempt to cleanse the air. He couldn’t have known that the kazooists had even more up their Lands’ End sleeves.

With a mixture of fear and pride, an MLK dad brandished an air horn in front of the mob and sounded it in short, sheepish bursts. Hubs scowled at this aural amateur and rang harder.

Strangely, as pathetic as the air horn-conducted kazoo band sounded, the wretched noise seemed to spur the MLK players on as the game got underway. The girls began whooping and screeching and their pursed lips were replaced by wide grins. They bounded onto the field with gusto.

“Don’t think we’re playing these kazoos because it’s the playoffs,” one woman told a Bellevue parent as the whistle blew. “We’re doing it because of that danged bell.”

Intentions aside, the kazoo band’s effect on the MLK girls was phenomenal. They played like demons and beat us, 3-0.

But even as our Bellevue Owls sobbed and clutched each other for support after the game had ended, Hubs and I couldn’t help but flash each other a quick thumbs up. Because we totally kicked ass in the noise department.