Herding Five-Year-Old-Kittens

When Andrew played 5/6 soccer, Christopher coached his team. And it went really well. I always thought Andrew suffered a bit with his father as the coach ... Chris always worried about it appearing as though he was playing favorites, so Andrew rarely ended up in the starting lineup. But nevertheless, they survived. And they succeeded.


So Chris (and I) thought it would be a great idea for Chris to coach Davis in this season of soccer - his 5/6 soccer season. Alas, it's not gone nearly as well as it did 2 years ago. For some reason, it's more like there are 4 kittens on a field that Chris is trying to herd into some sort of coordinating play. And it's worked once, maybe twice.

I believe there have been several contributing factors to this being a harder season for Chris and his younger son. For starters, there was a mix-up in the league's home office - for some reason they had Davis signed up as a 4 year old. And clearly he's not. This meant they had arranged for Chris to coach the 4-year-old team that Davis was set to play on. So when Chris got the phone call from the director to organize his team, the director of the league had some quick work to do and got it all figured out, or so we thought. The assistant coach for Chris was once the head coach of this team and she was apparently talked-into this position as a favor to a friend when they couldn't find another coach for this age group (which they actually had, they were just too mixed up to know it). The problem was that her son had never played soccer before ... this was an experiment on her behalf. It was all trial and error. And it turned out to be more error than trial.

Fast-forward to the first night of practice ... the assistant's son wants NOTHING to do with the game and the coach's son is frustrated on the field because he can't understand why Daddy - er, uh, Coach Daddy - isn't letting him run the show and kick the ball each time and call the shots on the field. Oh, that's right. He's terribly spoiled. :(

So the season has gone ... and we've had good games and we've had our asses handed to us (not that we're keeping score, of course). The assistant threw in the towel after the last game when she showed up and her son wanted no part of it. It's not easy corralling kittens when you don't have anyone there to help you. But Coach Chris has managed. Somehow.

This past Saturday may have been the turning point. After all of Davis's fits on the field during practice, he actually remembered how much fun it was to play the game. And how much fun it was to score a goal! His first of the season!! He was so excited, he did a little dance. On the field.

He's such a wallflower.

After he scored his goal, he went up to his coach and he said, "Dad! I remember how much fun soccer is now!" Four games left to the season, and he's in it for the fun. I knew it would come back to him at some point.