Soccer season approacheth. Several months ago, the boys head coach asked me if I’d like to be involved in taking a soccer team to an indoor tournament in Cheyenne. He said they wouldn’t be able to pay me much, but it would be good experience and as an added bonus, it would get me out of a painful afternoon of scheduled professional development. Three fewer hours of professional development? Sold!
“Even if you’re with the girls team?” coach asked.
“Uh… sure,” I said.
In retrospect this was kind of like the infamous “yearbook question” in my job interview. They’d asked me if I’d be willing to be the yearbook adviser, and on the inside, I was screaming OH GOD ANYTHING BUT YEARBOOK. On the outside, I smiled and said “Nothing, sirs, would warm the cockles of my heart more, sirs, than taking the helm of such a proud and organized production.”
So I said I’d take the girls. And why wouldn’t I? If I’m serious about being a soccer coach, then I’d better be willing to coach women as well as men.
The indoor tournament wasn’t like most school functions in many senses (there isn’t a true indoor soccer league; the players had to pay their own entry fees, etc.), but in the most important sense it was: we took school vehicles. Coach drove a Suburban full of 8 boys and I drove a Suburban full of 7 girls.
We arrived in Cheyenne on Friday night, checked into our hotel, and piled back into the Suburbans for dinner. Our kids are pretty sophisticated and savvy, but bless ‘em, they couldn’t resist the high-fallutin’, big-city temptations of Olive Garden and the mall.
Saturday was game day, and a few curious things happened. I taped my first ankle, having passed my “Care and Prevention of Athletic Injuries” class back in December; I threw together some last-minute coaching tips; I sat on the bench and watched the game in an entirely new light. In a goalie-plus-four indoor game, one can’t do a whole lot of coaching other than to stay positive and give high-fives on substitutions. But every now and then, elements of responsibility, control, and teamwork coalesced into a brand new kind of teaching high.
We lost our first three games, with a fourth game at 9:30 and no chance of playing in Sunday’s playoff bracket.
Mostly our losses could be chalked up to fitness and wellness – our school has been ravaged by a plague-like virus and everyone’s been hacking up lungbutter for the better part of a month. More tellingly, the girls were making smart passes and were reading passing lanes on defense, but they simply couldn’t move their legs fast enough to get to the ball or the attacker. With two subs, no one caught more than two or three minute breaks before someone else came staggering to the bench, gasping.
Our final match took place several hours after our third match, so after a lunch (picture a Suburban full of girls screaming “QUIZNOS! QUIZNOS! OHMYGODOHMYGOD THEY ARE SO GOOD DUDE! QUIZNOS! OHMYGOD! OHMYGOD!”) and a long rest, they took the court for the final game.
It was a team from northern Colorado somewhere and they looked like underclassmen. They were called “Ridgeview B” or something, so clearly they weren’t the best players the school had to offer. Still, we wanted a win – and we got it.
That night the kids ordered pizza – way, way too much of it – and stayed up until 2 playing video games in their hotel rooms, since a 5 hour drive home at 10:00pm was out of the question. Sunday’s drive home was terrifying for the first two hours but soon smoothed out. The fifty bucks I was paid barely covered my food expenses, but ultimately the experience was indeed far more valuable than the money. Our outdoor season starts March 3rd and I can’t wait.
