A Preface for the Youth Soccer, Wichita, and Catholic Communities
The world of the novel writer is in many ways the world of sheer imagination.
When this world intersects—and often collides—with the world of the Catholic writer, a myriad of possibilities become increasingly possible. Yet all this imagination comes from certain frames of reference, and sometimes these frames of reference come together in very unexpected ways.
Unfortunately, there can also be collisions of reference that are possible, and that is why I preface my fifth book overall and third novel in the Catholic realm here.
From the decision to name Coach Andy’s team FC Aviators came the decision to base Adoring Andy in Wichita, Kansas, in order to honor the city’s long and proud aviation heritage.
My positive news is being blessed with my forever hometown community of Rochester, New York; my undergraduate city of Milwaukee during my years at Marquette University, and similarly in Denver during my University of Denver graduate work; and, living and working in Dallas, Raleigh, Washington/Northern Virginia, and Columbus since college.
You’ll notice, however, that this list does not include Wichita, and while internet research can readily assist with most facts, it cannot duplicate actual life experience, most especially for the lifelong resident. Regardless of this, FC Aviators belong to your city, Wichita, if only in print, though it could be argued that most any other American city or town could also serve as the backdrop for Adoring Andy.
Similarly, as soccer has blossomed and grown exponentially in America, its players’ journeys are many and multifaceted. Nonetheless, each of us is a unique gift of God, and this prefaces my use of the pictures you see on the cover of Adoring Andy and its subsequent pages.
During the book’s preparation, I specifically and uncompromisingly looked for non-copyrighted and free digital images online without registered or trademarked watermarks, both to protect their creators’ intellectual property along with the respective individuals’ privacy.
Each of the FC Aviators--Jimmy, Carlos and Will, DeAndre and Fillipo, Craig and Manuel, Tim and Tomtom, Heath and Joe, and Ken and Gary—are associated with one such picture, along with their Coach Andy Founder and their dog mascot Freddie Flyer. As a veteran of two hundred such boys during a fifteen-year stretch of select youth soccer coaching during and after playing three seasons collegiately for Marquette, I used these pictures to help envision each of their character personas in the actual text of Adoring Andy applying my book outline spreadsheet, so that each name captures a fictional kid who is playing on a fictional team that plays and bonds together from Under 8 rec league, to Under 14 elite select competition in Wichita, and from there competes in the Dallas Cup Invitational, renown as the most prestigious youth soccer tournament in the world.
However, it is also true—especially in a more and more frightening world these days—that the real child, parent, or family behind my fictional depiction of Jimmy, Carlos and Will, DeAndre and Fillipo, Craig and Manuel, Tim and Tomtom, Heath and Joe, and Ken and Gary, as well as Coach Andy (and I suppose Freddie Flyer, too) may not be totally comfortable with their picture here “out in the open.”
I did not have the ability to trace and formally ask permission to use these pictures though they were in the public domain, and as children grow, life can change for them in many ways, hopefully all for the very best, but also and tragically sometimes for the very worse.
For these reasons, and because Catholic writers should always and without question take the moral high ground: I stand ready to pull and replace any and all pictures herein, for any families who request that I do so, with my regrets and apologies in advance. The new world of self-publishing makes this process fairly routine and simple.
In that same regard, I invite the Wichita, Kansas metro community to contribute any revisionary material that would better and more objectively reflect your city, especially your soccer history from a primary source view, and perhaps even going back to the early days of the Wichita Wings, as I recall from a native Rochesterian perspective the origins of our very own ASL/NASL Lancers with notable players such as Charlie Mitchell, Shep Messing, and the like.
Last of all, since this is not only a youth soccer novel, but also a Catholic Men and Boys’ Perpetual Adoration novel: I invite the Diocese of Wichita, Kansas, and the Church as a whole, to pastorally, sacramentally, and theologically review the prayer life of Coach Andy over the six years of Adoring Andy and provide any canonical revisions that may be needed.
Yours In Soccer,
and Yours Among Catholic Men and Boys of God,
Rich Agnello
(You may message me through Linked In as needed to protect each other’s privacy)
