“When I was maybe nine, I remember crying and being so upset, and my mom would walk down the sideline and just tell me it was all right. There’s some days now, in stadiums filled with fifty thousand people, where I could still use her.”
Tim Howard, Goalkeeper, United States of America, quoted in a profile by Hampton Sides in The New Yorker. Link is to abstract of article.
The thing is, if his mom is still alive, I’m sure she is there and she still feels exactly the same about him as she did when he was nine.
Honestly, when I heard about that blown call on the perfect game last week, the very first thought in my head was, “Oh, his poor mom must be losing her mind.”
Whenever the Mannings play each other, and they show their parents in the box watching the game, the dad always seems to be having a grand old time. The mom always looks like she can’t wait for this torture to be over.