Soccer parents extend support across the country for 'M'

No one minds that Doug Stewart's voice tends to resonate above the rest of the crowd at Michigan soccer games. It's assumed that since he travels from Maine to every game to watch his daughter, Carissa, he's earned the right to be the loudest fan.

But he doesn't just support his daughter. He takes it upon himself to be there for everyone on the team.

"I feel like I'm on the field with all of them," Stewart said. "I try to cheer for each and every one of them."

Stewart has made the transition from being a local soccer parent who drives around a beltway to watch his child play to an intercollegiate soccer parent who travels around the country to support his offspring. The play is at a higher level, and the parental commitment has to be as well.

Every weekend this fall, Carissa Stewart's father has made time to fly out of Portland, Maine, to catch Michigan's twenty-two games. He covered hundreds of miles each of the eight times he flew to Ann Arbor for home games. On flights to Atlanta, Missouri and Minnesota, he traveled even further.

These excursions often cause Stewart, an automobile dealership manager, to miss work. To make up for missed time, he has to work long hours and six days a week during the off season.

While this may seem extreme, there's nothing unusual about the man with the thick east coast accent. He is simply a proud father, who recognizes that while many parents follow their children's athletic accomplishments, few parents have children good enough to play Division I sports.

"I have a lot of pride and happiness for Carissa," Stewart said. "She's a kid from Maine, where soccer programs aren't as advanced as they are in Michigan."

Stewart travels furthest to be at every game, but the Wolverines have a handful of committed parents at every game. Like Stewart, most of these parents practiced with their daughters when they were five, drove their daughters to all sorts of fields when they were 12 and went with their daughters on college recruiting trips when they were 18. They didn't see any reason to become distant spectators when their girls went to college.

"How could we not come to these games?" Emily Schmitt's mom, Sharon, asked at the Big Ten tournament in Bloomington. "Parents who don't come to all of their kids' events miss out on so much."

At the collegiate level, the parents really have to be more fan than caretaker. When Emily Schmitt was young, her mother had no problem running onto the court in the middle of a basketball game if her daughter appeared injured. But against Vanderbilt this year, Sharon Schmitt wasn't sure what to do when Emily collided with a Commodore on a headball.

"She got her head cut open, and blood was coming out, and I was like, 'Can I go down there?'" Sharon Schmitt said.

Sharon eventually reached Emily on the sidelines, and then drove her daughter to the hospital where stitches were required. While she worried about her daughter's condition, Emily worried about the status of the game.

The parents don't get to console their kids as much after a loss as they would like.

"Emily wouldn't even talk to me after the Kentucky loss," Schmitt said. "She called me up and apologized after the game."

The parents often get just a quick hug after road games before the team leaves on the bus. After losses, the parents barely get a chance to say goodbye.

"When they're down, we have to just leave them alone," said Donna Poole, Shannon Poole's mom.

But the parents don't complain about how far they travel to watch their daughters and how little time they get to spend with them. They make the best of the small personal time these trips allow them with their daughter.

"She's away at school all the time, so on soccer trips I steal every second I can," Schmitt said.

In the Big Ten tournament, the parents got to spend time with their daughters at a few team dinners, but games, curfews and team breakfasts usually kept them at a distance.

Since the traveling gets very costly, the Michigan soccer parents use the extra time during road trips as their getaways.

"This year has been especially expensive," Sharon Schmitt said. "These are our vacations."

In Kentucky, the Stewarts went golfing and visited some of the Lexington horse farms. In Wisconsin and Minnesota, they traveled around the Great Lakes in freshly bought cheesehead hats.

So while the team has gelled into a tight knit group, the parents have also bonded and become a unit. Doug Stewart has become close friends with the Schmitts, and he relied upon them to drive him from Minneapolis to Madison.

"We're all close and we all help each other," Doug Stewart said.

While the sightseeing is nice, the parents go to such great lengths because they love watching their daughters play soccer. They get as nervous as the team before games and share in the season's highs and lows.

"All the parents have a lot more gray hair now than we did at the beginning of the season," Sharon Schmitt said.

While the parents may being paying a lot for just a little bit of time with their daughters, the team understands the sacrifice they are making.

"It means a lot to me. They've been supportive of me their whole life, and they are always there but they're never critical," senior Emily Schmitt said.

And while a casual observer might find these parent's commitment obsessive, many of the players count on the support.

"After the game, having (my dad) there gives me the support I need." Carissa Stewart said. "He's the loudest one cheering, and I can't picture being there without him."

Blue's travelers

MARJORIE MARSHALL/DAILY Doug Stewart travels from his home in Portland, Maine, all over the country to attend every single one of the Michigan soccer games to cheer on his daughter, Carissa, and her teammates. Though Stewart makes the longest trips, other parents of Wolverines are equally committed to rooting on the Wolverines in person.

11-09-99