A personal reflection of a twelve month journey with a thank you.

2010 will go down as a year of extreme highs and lows for me which made quite a few impressions on my life, but also taught me a few hard learned lessons. I started 2010 by beginning a new job that paid a very nice salary, but forced me to move away from my fiancé, and away from city life (Sioux Falls has about 150K people, I was working in a town called Lake Preston, which had less than 500). This adjustment was not impossible, but left me with a whole lot of free time on my hands.

It was just one year ago that I was riding the high of the excitement of what the 2010 World Cup became to me. I was six months into my new lifestyle which I hated, I was two months away from being married, and it became clear that my future was not in Lake Preston. To cope with my misery, the World Cup filled a void that had been left by missing my family and friends and by a very disappointing 2010 Mariners campaign.

However the World Cup came to an abrupt end, the Mariners traded away Cliff Lee which left me to only watching Felix days, and I quit my job leaving me jobless through the month of July. I was still very interested in soccer, and wanted to immerse myself in it. To my surprise, this was not easy to do. I knew that Major League Soccer existed, but I had no idea in what capacity. I learned that Clint Dempsey played for Fulham, but they were now in the off-season. I turned on the TV and searched the internet, and there was very little soccer to tune into.

I then focused my energy into learning the sport through a game called Football Manager 2010. It’s a fun fictional simulation game where you can manage a team in almost any league in the world to whatever direction you hope to take it. The game was not easy to pick up, because I had no idea what formations meant, that transfers between leagues existed, and that there was such things as regulation. A few hundred hours of playing the game later I had a slim grasp of the basics of the game.

August comes and I have a new job, moving to Vermillion, SD and had just gotten married. I still followed the Mariners on a loose basis and started to notice on the SBNetwork that MLS sides were churning out blogs. I started to follow a couple of them, and became incredibly bummed that the MLS did not have a team in Minneapolis. Being a Mariners fan, the Sounders seemed like a reasonable choice, but I wanted to cheer on a "local" team so that I would have a chance to see them.

The reason that today I am a Sounders fan is because of Sounder at Heart. I started to follow the team while they were struggling, someone named Freddie Lululuhfgerbgerg was leaving town, and the team seemed quite in flux. However I knew I wanted to follow along with friends, and the Kansas City, Dallas, Denver blogs just didn’t seem quite as friendly/appealing, and I was learning from Dave, Jeremiah, and crew.

Luckily as soon as I started following, the Sounders started to win, I got smarter and figured out how to watch them and other MLS matches, and I started becoming familiar with the rules, culture, and nuances of the game. I even started playing again in a recreation league. Since following the Sounders my quality of life has been quite high, granted it has very little to do with the Sounders (great job, great wife, great home, great health, great dog) but the Sounders and soccer really picked me up in a time when I needed something to do. I now have great enjoyment while watching the Sounders. Every goal we score is as exciting as the last, and every goal against is as crushing as it can get. From 1500 miles away I feel extremely close to the team, and for that, this is my thank you to those here in the S@H community.

You guys are extremely special to me as you all have been inviting to me and my silly South Dakotan ways. You have all taught me a few good things, gave me new perspectives to investigate, and have been especially kind when I asked newbie like questions. Jeremiah is at the top of the list for me as he entertains me from time to time on instant messenger and twitter. The amount of information you guys create and present, and the community you provide and manage, it is just wonderful.

The growing passion and fandom instilled by simple things as this blog, watching the games, has made a positive mark on my life. This August my wife and I will be traveling to Seattle for the first time. We will be catching a Sounders game, a Mariners game, and seeing the city in person all for the very first time. I really look forward to meeting 30K+ Sounders fans all in one spot and being a part of a crowd that ESPN cannot silence.

A short year ago, this trip would have never occurred. Before a year ago, if I had a reason to go to Seattle it would have been to see the Mariners. And while the Mariners are still very near and dear to my heart, the Sounders mean something more personal to me. In 10 months I feel like I have more invested in the Sounders than I have in almost 15 years of following the Mariners. Life is crazy like that sometimes.

So again, thank you everyone, and I really look forward to meeting you guys. The Sounders game we’ll be going to is against Chivas, which probably isn’t the most exciting of the bunch, but it will mean a lot to me for a long-long time. Maybe there’s a chance we can meet up before/after the game for a beer and for some good chatting. I highly doubt that many of you will be visiting Southeastern South Dakota anytime soon, so this is as good as chance as any!

Jordan "JWay" Gillis