Youth sports and the Obamas

I've been on the web this morning trolling for information about the sports-playing lives of President and Michelle Obama's girls, Malia and Sasha.

Here's what I found. Malia, 10, plays soccer. Sasha, 8, enjoys tap-dancing and gymnastics. Both girls have taken tennis lessons. In Chicago, their instructor was a fine player from Paraguay whose name is Valentina de Yeregui. The girls practiced every Sunday for 90 minutes. Ok, enough about tennis.

What I'm really curious about is whether we will see the President of the United States, McDonald's coffee in one hand, the Washington Post sport section clutched in the other, roaming the sidelines at a kids' sports game. (While we're on this vital subject, has there ever been a sitting president with a child registered for youth soccer?)

Given what we know about Obama's devotion to family, we can assume he will be at least an occasional spectator. This is more than idle speculation. (A little more, anyway.) In October, during the heat of the presidential campaign, Obama made an appearance at one of Malia's soccer games in Chicago.

This from a Chicago Sun-Times account:

"Malia's father quietly strode onto the field at 8:15 wearing a dark jacket and blue hat after his workout. None of the other parents or kids seemed to notice him. The game was underway, and Michelle Obama was there.

"Obama chatted with another man while watching his daughter's team play against another team wearing yellow jerseys....At one point Obama took a break from the game to have a brief footrace with younger daughter Sasha."

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