Mr. Mom Won’t Baby Opposition Son Is Constant Companion For Shadow’s Captain

Grayden Saunders is going to spend his first Mother’s Day at a barbecue at Grandma’s house, which seems very generous of his devoted parents, Tina and Stuart.

“It’s OK,” Tina said with a chuckle, “because we haven’t accepted the fact we’re both moms.”

Soccer players who meet Stuart Saunders in front of the Spokane Shadow goal might not believe what Tina is trying to say: The vanity plates on the truck that just ran over them read “Mr. Mom.”

Saunders is rock solid on defense, with an emphasis on rock solid for the Shadow captain.

Fans can get their own look at this apparent 5-foot-11, 180-pound contradiction when the Shadow play their first USISL Premier League home game Sunday evening at Albi Stadium. The Mother’s Day game against the Tucson Amigos begins at 6:05.

Tina, 27, is a typical working mother with a somewhat flexible schedule who wishes she was at home more.

Stuart, 31, is a soccer bum.

Grayden, 8-1/2 months, is just lucky.

“I’d much rather have him with Stuart than in day care,” said Tina, who works as a broker for Zirkle and Co. “In the beginning we had a hard time, but you should see them now. They’re wonderful together. They’re a pair.”

“We’re supportive of each other,” Stuart said. “Hopefully, some day she’ll be able to be home. We’re fortunate, we want to raise our child without outside help.”

Saunders is the boys soccer coach at Shadle Park, his alma mater, and plays for the Shadow, giving him plenty of time for Grayden, his constant daytime companion.

Being a soccer bum - a great term for her husband, Tina said - has its advantages.

“Very few people can love something so much,” Tina said of Stuart’s passion for soccer. “I don’t have something, an (inanimate) object, that I love like that.

“There’s that saying: ‘You find something you love, find a way to make money at it and then you lead the excellent life.’ Stuart has found that.” He would be the last to disagree. He has long had a passion for soccer.

His father married an English woman when he was in the Air Force.

“He fell in love with all things English. He’s kind of one of those romantic-type guys, and what’s more English than soccer?” Saunders asked. “From as young as I can remember, we had a soccer ball around.”

After the family bounced from England to the States to Spain, the elder Saunders retired in Spokane.

Stuart was 12 and youth soccer was in its infancy.

“I played through (all the age-group stages). I wanted to play football, but I did well with soccer and kind of got hooked,” he said. “Part of it was my dad’s influence. The other part is it’s active, there are no breaks, it’s physical, it’s competitive. You don’t necessarily have to be a big guy to play.”

The Greater Spokane League didn’t have soccer until his senior year, and it wasn’t a varsity sport at the Community Colleges of Spokane until his second year. Then he quit because he wanted more.

“I wasn’t focused on the school thing,” he admitted. “I wanted to play soccer is what I wanted to do.”

He returned to England to train and play. He played for a semipro team and worked out with the team that won the fourth (lowest) division that year, though he was never invited to be on the team.

“I just wasn’t quite good enough,” he said.

Saunders returned to Spokane, but moved to Las Vegas with a friend, hoping to play soccer at UNLV. When that didn’t work out, he decided to go back to England. He came back to Spokane to get ready to go and someone set him up with a blind date.

Unfortunately, the University High School graduate he fell for had signed a contract to be a nanny in Washington, D.C.

“I was out there about a month when Stuart called and asked if I would pick him up at the airport in a month,” Tina said.

They thought about staying in D.C., but first decided to get married. So they drove across the country in January in a 1964 Volkswagen van to get married in Spokane.

Before they could leave, Saunders got an opportunity to play at Whitworth College, where he had an All-America career. Tina went to junior college and on to Whitworth, but before she finished Stuart got started at Shadle. Still, she hoped to go on to graduate school when the Shadow came into existence.

“I said I’d look around for a job and got this,” she said. “I guess we were meant to be here.”

Here is a Mother’s Day barbecue and a dad’s night out for Mr. Mom.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo