Soccer families are not an unusual phenomenon, but occasionally you meet one that especially gets your attention.

The Wagners of Wall Township, New Jersey are a good example.

Bill and Cindy Wagner have five children. Readers of TopDrawerSoccer.com are likely most familiar with Mary Gibson, a 19-year old freshman at Boston College who played club ball at PDA. Dylan, 22 got the family soccer ball rolling. He attends Rowan University now. Harrison Wagner is 20 and a freshman at DIII program Rutgers-Newark. Isabel, 17 played club and school soccer previously but is now involved with lacrosse. Zelda is 10 and precocious in many ways, including as a club player at PDA.

The family story is somewhat familiar. Dylan was the first to play and as he got more involved. then the siblings wanted to follow. Mom and Dad didn’t have soccer backgrounds but took more interest in learning the game as their children did. Getting everyone to their nightly activity meant rolling up massive mileage totals on family vehicles, and family vacations almost always were somewhat dictated by soccer events.

So it should be no surprise that perhaps the foremost event to affect the family to date occurred in conjunction with soccer.

As the family was returning home from the US Youth Soccer Nationals in Massachusetts in the summer of 2009, a vehicle Dylan was driving was struck by another vehicle. Dylan and Mary Gibson each received a concussion and Cindy was relatively unhurt, but Harrison, then about to start his freshman year of college, suffered more serious head and brain injuries including a fractured skull.

Cindy Wagner recalls that when he came to later one of the first things Harrison told her was that he was afraid he wouldn’t be ready for his college preseason. Knowing more about his condition then he did, that was the last thing on Cindy’s mind.

Harrison ended up missing an entire year of school and had to go through extensive rehabilitation. In fact the year was a difficult one for everyone in the house.  It was six months before Harrison could even run. Whether he would be able to play soccer at all was in doubt for a time, but in fact he has overcome his injuries and is playing this fall for the Rutgers-Newark team, even scoring his first collegiate goal recently.

{mosvideo:350}Not surprisingly, Harrison credits family with helping him get through.

“I kept my head up,” he said. “I had a lot of support from my family. The coaches were very supportive too. My concern after a while wasn’t necessarily that I would be able to come back, but would I be the same, how will I think when I come back, that kind of thing.”

Doctors credited Harrison’s excellent physical condition with having kept him alive at the time of his accident.  He needed the same work ethic that put him in good condition in order to make it back.

“I think I’m in the same shape and form as I was,” he said. “I do feel like I’m a little bit more mature from this, that I have a better outlook. I’m really grateful to be out there.”

His siblings weren’t shy about expressing their happiness for their brother’s comeback.

“I think the kid’s an inspiration,” Dylan said. “To see where he was before the accident, working and training to be in shape for this lifelong goal of playing soccer in college. Then to see how quickly it changed, it would be very easy to use that as an excuse and let it slide, but he worked so hard since the accident I think he’s in better shape than he was.”

“I was just so excited to hear about that first goal,” Mary Gibson said. “It was so traumatic, most people wouldn’t have come back the way he has. We’ve all seen the struggle he went through so to see him succeeding now is very nice.”

Isabel summed up the family attitude one to another, and soccer’s role, quite succinctly.

“Everyone’s so close in this family,” she said. “We’re always there for each other.”

Sports helped bring us together. We all grew up playing soccer. That’s all I remember growing up.”

Read about Rob's driving adventure en route to the Wagners from Ohio.