A few months into graduate school, I was rotating through research labs, trying to find someone dumb enough to take me on as a student researcher.  Being a “rotatelet” meant being a temporary employee with few creature comforts: no assigned desk, no computer and, often, no lab keys.  This was not usually a problem, except on weekends, when I had to wait for other lab members to arrive and let me in.  One fine Saturday I was on campus, trying to kill time until the call came to head in to work.  I’d just gone to the gym and was still twiddling my thumbs when I some activity on the sports fields behind the rec center.  Like a bored moth to flame, I moved in to check it out.

There was a high school girl’s soccer tournament in progress.  Mediocre teenage soccer teams were locked in battle across at least four fields.  It was sparse entertainment, but at least it was something.  I plopped down in the bleachers amidst a cluster of parents and watched the game.  Soon, halftime arrived and I grew bored.  I had brought a notebook filled with lecture notes from my biochemistry class.  To pass the time, I studied, occasionally making a few notations of my own.  After a few minutes, I became aware of a developing situation: all the parents in the bleachers had surrounded me and were slowly edging in toward me.     

I, it seemed, was a flame to which the parents were inexorably drawn.

It finally dawned on me why.  I the only guy in the bleachers the parents didn’t know.  Actually, I was probably the only person in the stands who wasn’t a parent, period.  I was  an athletic-looking guy in my mid 20s, wearing a ton of Duke gear, at a high school women’s soccer game on a major college campus.  I was also armed with a notebook, in which I was making tiny scribbled notes as the game progressed.  Can you say “college scout”?

Duke had a division I women’s soccer program that was major league, usually among the top 10 in the country and a fast track to a shot at the US National and Olympic teams.  To the assembled parents, I represented the culmination of years of dreams and hard work for them and their little girl, not to mention a full college scholarship program to a top-notch university.  But who was I there for?  As a result, every parent was easing in, trying to get close enough to read what I was writing in my little notebook without appearing too obvious or desperate.  But they were desperate.  I knew from growing up in that environment that parents spent years of their life and invested tens of thousands of dollars in the hope that their sons daughters would get noticed.  To them, my being here was a huge deal.

As I began to realize the uniqueness of the situation, my phone rang.  It was my colleague, mentioning that he had arrived and that I could swing by the lab when ready.  “Yeah, no sweat,” I said, and he hung up.  I decided to have a little fun with the parents.  Pretending I was still on the phone I said “Yeah, I’m still at the game.  I’ll fly out later to meet you at junior nationals.  Okay.  Alright.  Bye, coach.”  I simulated hanging up and snapped my notebook shut on the ring of parents.  Their was a soft-but-palpable sound of disappointment.  As I strode briskly away.  I had intended merely to play with them and leave them wondering a bit, but one of them decided to take it a little farther.  I had reached my car in the adjacent parking lot when I heard a timid “excuse me,sir?” from behind.  One of the parents had actually followed me into the parking lot.  He was a typical soccer parent: fortyish and pudgy, with a gleam of nervous optimism in his eye.  I regarded him coolly, playing the part.

“Can I help you,” I asked.

He didn’t quite seem to know what to do now that he had my attention.  “Are you... Did you come to see the... any particular girl...” he trailed off, nodding toward the soccer field.

“What’s your name?” I asked.  John F. Fullerton, he replied, including his middle initial for some reason.  “And you daughter is...”  I opened my notebook as though I was looking up the information.  John saved me the trouble.  His daughter was Molly Fullerton.  The left defender.  She made all-state last year, did I know?  John F. Fullerton stood in front of me, hands clasped like an elderly woman that needs the bathroom, hoping to get the scoop.

“Well, John F. Fullerton, I think you know who I am, and I assume you also know the rules about speaking with players and parents.”  He nodded vigorously.  I think he would have nodded vigorously if I would have asked him if he had an inflamed scrotum.  “We all have to play by the rules, don’t we John?” I asked.  He nodded sycophantically.

I decided to throw up a prayer.

“You know what the worst part about traveling is, John?  Du- uh, my employer, doesn’t reimburse my expenses on gas.  I had to drive all the way up from Tampa.  You know what kind of gas mileage this thing gets?” I asked, gesturing to my car.  “It really pisses me off and leaves me in a bad mood.  Really bad.”

John’s wallet was out before the words had left my lips.  He couldn’t think of anything smooth to say during what effectively was his attempt at a bribe.  “Uhhh... you know... that’s terrible.  Hard work and all... let me...  you know.  Help out?”  In his hand was a crisp 50 dollar bill.  I was not to proud to get reacquainted with the portrait of Ulysses Grant.

“You’re a good man John.  I hope I meet you again.”  I tipped him a wink, meaning what I said.  Enough of these meetings and I could go into fake college recruiting full time.