Soccer Dad

In a strange twist of fate that reminds me for the 5,237,009 time that God has a sense of humor, I am coaching a soccer team. Some back story is in order.

In an omission that probably qualifies as child neglect in several states, Kadie and I have never enrolled the kids in any organized sports. (Although we did have them in Tae Kwon Do for a few years). With our work schedules and general challenge of being poorly organized, we’ve never taken the time to do so. But that changed on Saturday.

Kadie is trying a radical new schedule that will put her in the position of working all night, two days a week. That allows her to be at home every evening and gives us more flexibility to have someone at home with one kid while the others go to practice. Because of this, we (foolishly?!) enrolled all three kids into a local soccer league sponsored by a megachurch in our area. None of our kids have ever played before.

All games and practices are on Mondays and Saturdays over the next two months. We figured that their practices would overlap and we could drive out to the soccer fields and get all the practices over at once. But that was not to be.

On Saturday morning we arrived in the early morning heat for Squealer’s 10 am practice. He was hot and sweaty and enjoyed it immensely. His coach gave each parent a resume showing how he played on the high school and collegiate level. He then gave us an outline of a typical practice and worked the kids hard for an hour. Squealer loved it.

Skeeter’s practice was at 12:00 pm (?!) and also wore her out. It was hot….Africa hot…Tarzan couldn’t take this heat. Unfortunately, they had no coach. A friend of mine volunteered to be their coach, but only on the condition that I be his co-coach. Despite the fact that my own playing experience was 30 years ago and the only game I’ve watched since was Germany "crush" South Korea in the World Cup almost 13 years ago (and I only watched that whole game because I was there). I know little to nothing about the game. I can describe the difference between the 3-4 and the 4-3 defense in football, explain the infield fly rule in baseball, distinguish between carrying and traveling in basketball, but all I know about soccer is that you can't touch the ball with your hands.

So coaching a team should be quite interesting.*

Scooter’s practice was at 1:00 and was even hotter. Her practice was more of a tryout as her age group (Under 15) will be subject to a draft. Of the three kiddos, I was mostly concerned with her. As a Tween, I think she’s in a demographic that is generally more concerned with being cool and fitting in that her younger siblings. She was a bundle of anxiety. Fortunately, there were a few others who had never played before and she fit in beautifully.

*My brother Bartolo will be the one chortling the hardest over this delicious irony. He was a soccer star who would’ve played at the highest levels had he not made the wise decision to follow his passions into other areas instead. He once broke a guys nose who was going for "his" ball. I have no doubt that he had the talent to go as far as he desired. He even played on the same select teams as this guy! I feel certain that he will be giving me some soccer drill suggestions.