Soccer Dad
My life as a soccer coach started a couple of years ago, when my younger son’s soccer coach was graduating from the Recreational League (open to everyone) to the Classic League (open by invitation and after a try-out). He was moving up, along with his son, who had been a “recreation” star player. Their farewell party was held around a backyard swimming pool, with ice pops dripping and boys making huge splashes with their cannonball dives. The festivities, however, were offset by the fact that none of the parents was stepping forward to lead the team the following season.
I was as busy as the next person, with a new company, a new mortgage, and no “free time.” Yet when I let slip that I had played high school soccer, the jig was up. Not many people of my generation who grew up in the United States played soccer. A few people quickly spread the word, and by the time we gave the outgoing coach his embroidered “Coach Burgett” T-shirt as a going-away gift, I was being announced as the new head coach.
Asian Americans have been trusted with other peoples’ starched shirts, stir-fry dinners, and railroad-building chores. They have watched others’ children as paid baby-sitters and “house boys.” But to be voluntarily accepted as a leader and role model for impressionable youth seems to signal that we are one step closer to full acceptance in this society.
For those who have not tried coaching a youth soccer team, it is part skill building, part stamina building, and part crowd control. Toddlers play “bumble bee soccer,” swarming after the ball without playing a position. Pre-teens play positions, but get distracted by an unleashed dog near the field. Adolescents can concentrate just as well as adults, but if anyone makes a real or fake farting noise, the entire group takes it as a signal to roughhouse.
Once on the field, coaching youth soccer has become a Zen-like ritual. Last week, for example, I left my office early, picked up my son and his friend, and drove to the nearby Seven Locks soccer field. Bounded by trees on two sides and tall bushes on another, the sounds of car engines are muted to a silence.
The kids stretch and kick a ball around, and then we play mini-games that help with stamina or skills. No kid will willingly run around the field 10 times, but when I break them into teams and have them run up and down the field dozens of times in dribbling or passing games, they get the same amount of exercise and also develop eye-foot coordination.
Most of the coaches use a whistle to get the kids in line. I prefer a quieter method. I ask the boys to cooperate, and those who cannot settle down have to sit on the sideline for a while.
At this age, learning team spirit and good sportsmanship is just as important as winning the game. (To be honest, it is important to have this perspective at any age.)
I’ve had winning and losing seasons, and sometimes it’s just as important to learn to win graciously as it is to accept a closely contested defeat. I recall two seasons ago, one of our players put spit on his hand when he went to shake hands with the players who beat us. His parents and I talked with him after the game. When a similar event happened after we beat another team 6-0 in a practice game recently, I used it as a moment for the team to discuss the value of winning — and losing — with both honor and humility.
I’m not sure any of them understood what I was saying at that moment (they were frantically gulping down their Gatorade and water), but I hope they’ve stored it somewhere in the deep recesses of their minds for another place and another time. |
