Rise And Shine: The Jay DeMerit Story - Its About More Than Just Soccer

I can't remember how I first learned about Rise and Shine: The Jay DeMerit Story. My best guess is that I must have become aware of it via Twitter, since that social network is where most of my newest connections from within the soccer community have come from over the past 6-9 months.

According to the official website - Rise and Shine: The Jay DeMerit Story is the true story of a young American's impossible journey - a journey never experienced or heard of in the soccer world. However, after watching the documentary for the first time on Fathers' Day at the Crystal City Sports Pub (site of my attempted fundraiser) I quickly realized the true message within Jay's story reaches far beyond the soccer world.

via www.theamericanoutlaws.com

Let me go back first to explain how I ended up at a sports pub in the D.C. area on Father's Day. After learning about the Jay DeMerit documentary and the goal set by the producers to raise $215,000 to distribute their film, I decided to support the cause and pledged what was affordable to me - not much by the way. Instead of simply sending the link to my "social network" of friends, family, and soccer colleagues, I wondered if there was a better more effective strategy to raise the money and awareness.

After reaching out to the producers of the film Nick Lewis quickly responded and the seed was planted to have a screening/fundraiser event in the D.C. area. Why not, I thought, how hard could it be? Not to mention it would be a great chance to network while supporting soccer in America. (Side note: my main goal in everything I do with regards to soccer i.e. writing, coaching, and attending matches is to simply raise awareness of soccer in America.)

Well as it turned out, fund raising and event planning are amazingly more difficult than one would ever imagine. Setting up a venue for the event, getting raffle prizes, and most importantly publicizing the event to get people interested and willing to attend were downright arduous. It was immediately clear that my good faith effort to support something important to me may have been too ambitious a task. To tell the truth, quitting and canceling the event crossed my mind on more than one occasion, but the fear of being seen as a quitter as opposed to failing prevailed.

So, long story short ... well shorter ... my wife put me in contact with an owner at the Crystal City Sports Pub who more than generously gave me the perfect location for our event (free of charge, thank you!) and the invitations were sent out.

Back to Fathers' Day at the sports pub. Arriving with plenty of time to set up and check out our area I was left to wait, and wait, and wait for what seemed like an eternity for someone, anyone to arrive. Finally a familiar face walked up the stairs into the room followed by his two sons. After surely talking his ear off from sheer nervous release another familiar face flanked by his son arrived. My wife had also shown up with two of my daughters sometime in between the appearances of what would become the only quests to my screening/fundraiser. Unfortunately, once I realized this event was not going to be the successful event I had hoped and planned for, the last guest arrived. You might think "that's great, more people is a good thing," well the final guest was the professional photographer that had arranged to cover my event free of charge as well. I also happen to work with him at my day job so it was somewhat embarrassing when I had to explain that there were not going to be any more attendees and that I would understand if he wanted to leave and head off to his next, most likely more successful, event. Being a great guy he stuck around and the number of "viewers" of our screening was final at a whopping twelve.

As the movie began a sense of relief came over me. I could finally get to see the movie, Rise and Shine, that got my attention in the first place a couple months prior.

The movie in itself is a great story, covering the path Jay DeMerit took from a teenage soccer player in Wisconsin to the highest level of professional soccer in the world - The Premier League in England, and also making his national team (a dream for most soccer players).Though watching the movie at that very moment having felt that my effort and desire to reach more people and make a bigger splash were all in vain, I realized there was nothing for me to feel ashamed about. Did I succeed? Depends on your definition of the word. Not much money was raised, but the true success came from learning about Jay's journey and drive to never allow himself to be deterred by what may have seemed to others as a lack of clear success. Along his journey, he could have called it quits and returned home still having had an experience most others never get to enjoy: travelling across Europe chasing a dream. Instead, Jay embraced his challenges and appreciated what he did have, even if that was just a cramped sleeping quarters on a mattress in an attic.

What did I have to be ashamed of? Nothing! As the saying goes: "Timing is everything" and the timing of my somewhat failed attempt at a fundraiser matched with watching this exact movie made me only want to give it another shot. So I enjoyed the film, which was easy to do since it is an amazingly inspiring true story, and I decided, like Jay, I still want to try and succeed with my goal of raising awareness of soccer in America.