Wow, has it really been a month? A weekend off for Memorial Day, a rainy weekend cancelling games, a conference in Dallas and a weekend spent camping. Yes, it really has been a month.
I have been thinking about the last game Eldest played this spring. I worried about this game for several weeks. Ultimately, the game came out about as bad as I expected. We won 11-0. That's not a typo. We won. The final score was 11-0. Thankfully, my boys became selfish in the second half. If they had even remotely considered passing to the WIDE OPEN teammate standing in front of the goal, rather than taking a bad angled shot while covered by 2 defenders, we probably could have put in 15-16 goals. For the sake of sportsmanship and minimizing the feeling of shame on the winning coach, I am glad they started thinking of personal glory, rather than team accomplishment.
My fear was created by several conversations with the father of a friend of Eldest's. We had discussed the soccer season, as his son was on Eldest's team last fall. Early in the season he told me he thought his son's team would go winless this spring. I doubted that, but as we crossed paths at various swimming, soccer and school events, it became apparent that he was correct. I also began to worry about what my freight train of a team might do to theirs.
I knew they lost their first game "something like 12-0". That loss was to the only team Eldest has lost to this spring. You may recall we lost 5-3 after being down 4-1 at halftime. You may recall that the coach (who shall remain nameless and continue to refer to himself in the third person) made a substitution error, leaving him with two of his strongest players on the bench at the end of the game. You may not know that the best player on the team (my little Maradona) did not play in that game, as he had not yet joined the team at that point. At this point, more than a few parents on our team believe we would win a rematch. The nameless coach agrees.
Knowing that a team we are essentially on par with defeated our friend's team "something like 12-0" weighed on me. I want my boys to do well. The secret I don't tell them is that not one of them hates losing more than me. We lost our game and they were over it by the time the Gatorade was finished. I'm still not quite over it. I will never get over losing my last swim meet as a coach. That was in 1997. However, I do not enjoy humiliating people, especially 9 year olds. Heading into this game, I feared humiliation. Five minutes into the game, sitting on a 2-0 lead, I feared I had under-estimated the result.
To make matters worse, it was a cold, rainy day. About 10 minutes into the game, my goalie yelled to me that he was cold. All I could tell him was to jump up and down, I didn't expect him to see much action. He did see a little action, and at one point in the game, I feared the other team would score. As much as I don't like to humiliate 9 year olds, there is always a little voice in my head reminding me that I don't want to get scored on. At several points, I looked to the other side of the field and saw Eldest's friend's parents huddled under an undersized umbrella, watching the game. As miserable as the weather was for everyone, at least our parents were watching a big win, not a blow-out loss.
I yelled at my boys a little less than normal. And with 10-15 minutes to go, at the suggestion of the referee, I pulled a player to play a man down. My biggest fear in doing that was realized when we scored two more goals. I found myself wondering what is worse, losing 9-0 in 40 minutes even strength, or losing 2-0 in 10 minutes while a man up. The game ended and my boys understandably were overjoyed, and loved to yell that they won, 11-0. I quickly bottled that up. I told them they played a good game, but we didn't need to scream out the score or make a big deal out of this. We shook hands, had snack and moved on.
I didn't see our friends after the game and didn't get a chance to talk to them about the game for a couple of days. They were pleased that I pulled a player in the game. I was still embarrassed.
We had an ugly win. We didn't win ugly, because that means you played ugly, but still won. The boys played well until they got too selfish. (I don't mind a little selfish, but this got out of hand.) Defensively, they played very well. But it was an ugly win. I felt bad for the other team. I felt bad for their teenager coach. I felt bad for the two boys on that team who are in the midst of their second consecutive winless season.
Little Maradona was gracious while scoring 5-6 goals in the game and didn't complain when I pulled him. He did want back in. I told him before the game that I may ask him to stop scoring. When I pulled him, I told him I was doing this instead of telling him not to score. He asked if he was going back in and I said yes, and subbed him in a few minutes later. While waiting he asked if he could score again. I said yes and he looked at me and said, "I make the goals." All I could do was smile and say, "Yes, you do."
No comments:
Post a Comment