Soccer star welcomes second son, says “family comes first”
After the birth of his first child Luka, 3, soccer player Mile Sterjovski rushed back to the field before he — or his wife Sharon — were really ready. "I basically took my wife out of the hospital with Luka and jumped on a plane the same day" Mile recently revealed, "We had two games against the Solomon Islands and I was used for 15 minutes in both games after I was told I was really needed." It was a mistake Mile and Sharon were determined not to repeat after welcoming their second child, Sonny, on June 2. In fact, this time around, the 29-year-old midfielder stayed home while his team the Socceroos played four important World Cup qualifier games without him. He had the full support of coach Pim Verbeek, Mile said, adding,
I was only thinking of my family, Pim put me at ease, he understood family comes first.
5-week-old Sonny is just one of several babies born during the Socceroos baby boom. Captian Lucas Neill welcomed fraternal twins in London just six hours after Sonny’s birth, while striker Josh Kennedy and midfielder Jacob Burns were also expecting children during the month of June.
Source: Illawarra Mercury
Thanks to CBB reader Victoria.
July 9th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Interesting story. Yeah, that would really give me second thoughts, too. I’m sure, at the time, he thought, “ok. this is my career. I don’t want to screw it up. It takes care of my family. If they need me they need me.” And then to get there, feeling pressured to be there, and to not be hardly used in the game. Good that he went with his heart, his own and his family needs, and told them what came first….and good that he got support for that. In other jobs, you can often get sick time, family leave time. In sports, it seems this is less common…they expect you at the games, regardless of what just happened. It’s almost like, in sports, there’s an attitude of the dad not needing to be there with the mom/family. This happened to the mom, so why can’t the athlete still play? It’s sad, but that seems to be the case, a lot.