Once Upon a Time on a Soccer Field

I Tried My Hand, er, Foot, at Coaching

World Cup fever has not invaded my house.

That’s because I grew up during the era when soccer was considered part of the world communist conspiracy.

When I was a kid, a kickball was the closest thing you could find to a soccer ball at Dobyns-Taylor.

So it was with some trepidation a few years ago that I fielded a call from Charlie, my son’s soccer coach. “Your son put down on his sheet that you’d be willing to help coach,” he informed me.

“He what!?!?” I sputtered.

I explained that I didn’t know anything about soccer but Charlie assured me that wouldn’t be a problem. “You can just keep them busy during drills,” said head coach Charlie.

Obviously every other dad had turned him down.

That worked just fine during the pre-season. Charlie taught them plays, taught them how to kick, how to tackle. I kept the kids from hitting each other and from sitting down.

Then came the first game of the season. And a phone call the night before. “Vince, this is Charlie. Listen, I have to go out of town on business. I need you to coach the game tomorrow.”

“But, uh, you said, uh.”

“You’ll do just fine,” he said as he hung up.

And that’s how it happened that the first game of soccer I ever saw, I coached.

I was halfway hoping that a silent flu bug would invade our neighborhood overnight and not enough kids would show up to field a team. But when I arrived at the soccer field, they were all there, sporting crisp new tee shirts with “Hometown Pizza” across the front and “Oldham County Youth Soccer” and a number on the back.

“Okay, kids, get out there and warm up,” I stalled, looking skyward and thinking that rain might be my only salvation. The sun was staring down at me.

The referee blew his whistle and the kids scurried to the sideline to do what any gang of eight-years-old does: push each other. The referee ran over to me. “Coach, you can put your team on the field now,” he said.

I looked him square in the eye. “How many are we allowed to have out there?”

“Eleven,” he replied. And he didn’t even chuckle.

I remember thinking, huh, same as football, as I sent eleven kids out to man positions I didn’t even know the names of.

The other team scored in the first five minutes. But in the second half, out of a mass of little bitty flailing arms and stubby kicking legs, the ball went in the goal and we had tied the game. And that’s the way it ended.

Charlie returned to coach the next week and I finished my soccer coaching career undefeated. (Also winless.)

But I did learn a few things in that brief soccer coaching experience in the under-ten league

I learned that other people’s kids don’t mind any better than your own.

I learned that no matter how many substitutes you send into the game, one more player will come out than went in.

And I learned that it is not whether you win or lose that matters but what kind of treat you have after the game.