Watching Laura Cook

There was a huge crowd for this crosstown showdown with Papillion-LaVista South.

The best laid plans...

Remember my recent trip to Mercy High School to watch one of my former St. Mary's of Bellevue basketball players, Emma Duman?

Posing with Laura outside the lockerroom.

Tonight, Julia and Olivia and me (just like last time) drove up 84th street to Papillion-LaVista High School to watch the only other player still active, Laura Cook.

We arrived early enough to look for Laura in warm-ups. While I was searching for her uniform number (22), Julia had no problem spotting her. "She's the one in the black T-shirt, Dad," Julia told me.

Um, yeah. She was in a black T-shirt. And black pants. Not warm-up gear. It was immediately – and painfully – obvious she was not suited up to play.

We would later learn Laura suffered her fourth(!) concussion recently at the Westside game. (One that we almost went to last weekend.) So she's out for now. In speaking with her after the game, I learned she will be going to Iowa Western to play soccer. I told her parents that this marked the first time I had been to a game where she hadn't played. She was our best player and helped us win quite a few games.