I lost my mom when I was four. My dad when I was ten. After that I grew up in different family homes — some with people who cared, some without. No one built the bridge for me into structured activities, competitive sports, or the kind of environments where consistency and adult presence make the difference.
People stepped in and did what they could. But competitive youth sports demand a level of coordination, transportation, fees, paperwork, and steady adult support that's hard to sustain when the foundation has already shifted.
I figured it out on my own through self-reliance and intuition. But that came with a cost — I kept people at arm's length for decades, convinced I was just independent when really I had never learned to trust.
My son competes at the highest levels of soccer now, and I'm proud of every bit of it. But watching the infrastructure around him that makes it possible made me think about the boys who have that same fire but don't have that same system.
The name comes from the question every boy who's lost a parent eventually asks. We can't answer that question. But we can make sure he still gets to practice on Tuesday.