Our life just got a bit more hectic. #3 (with his sister on the left) had his first practice last week and now it’s official … we’ve got three kids playing soccer. Don’t get me wrong - our two youngest have grown up at the soccer fields (#4 was there two days after coming home from the hospital!) so they’re always there when their older siblings are. But now #3 has a schedule! So this will be the first year where we’ll have to split up and miss at least ONE child’s match on certain weeks. Bummer.

#3 has been excited about getting started since he got his new cleats for his birthday. Of course when he got to the fields and it was 35 degrees, he decided that maybe "it would be better for me if I waited for warmer weather!" Which he got the next week (i.e. above 40F) The youngest (#4) could care less. If there’s a ball within 25 feet of him, he’ll be dribbling it somewhere, or dropping it and kicking it - something he’s decided works best in the house near all the things that break. Trust me when I say those Size 1 skill balls can do a lot of damage!

I sometimes get asked about my kids, being ‘Soccer Dad’ and all. Those of you who have read this site for a while know I tend to avoid ‘Johnny scored a goal today!’ posts. It gets old after a while, though I’ve let the occasional one slip through. But I can’t say I purposefully avoid posting about their exploits on the field.

While I was digging through my ‘To Be Filed’ folder of digital pictures (which gets bigger and bigger), I found a few from last Fall that I figured I’d post up, so consider this an introduction to The Eldest, The Princess, #3, and #4 (who we often call Little ‘S’ but this is a family blog ). I’m sure the two youngest will get soccer nicknames in time. (Eldest would get upset if I neglected to share his REAL nickname that he got at summer camp a few years ago: The Rhino. Has it’s own official handshake and everything!)

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Just when you were comfortable with your weekends free to do whatever, so begins another season! And there was much rejoicing! As luck would have it, we had beautiful weather in January with temperatures often hitting 60 or 70. As soon as practices started - yup - frigid temperatures, wind, rain, even a little snow. So we’ve squeezed in practices whenever it was warm enough not to turn everyone into statues, which hasn’t been often.

While the beginning of our Rec matches is still a week away, Challenge matches kicked off this weekend. So this past Saturday, Eldest (on the left in a picture from last Fall) and the rest of the family hopped in the minivan and headed to Yadkin County’s YMCA. What a beautiful complex. The two soccer fields are at the bottom of a sports complex that is built into rolling hills, with a modern Y facility and war memorial at the top. I bet it is beautiful when the trees are green.

Anyway, our team took the field and promptly got scored on. Twice. The starters seemed to be sleepwalking, but they also seemed somewhat disoriented. After the second goal, our coach pulled everyone but the keeper to find out what was happening.

"Guys - what’s going on?" asked the coach.

"Coach! They keep talking to each other in Spanish! We can’t understand them so we don’t know what they’re going to do!"

I wish I had a camera to take a shot of our coach’s face. Half of our parents who were sitting near the bench were in hysterics. See the other team had a few Hispanic players on it and they had been talking back and forth on the field in Spanish. We haven’t had much luck attracting many Hispanic children to our local league (though we’re still trying to - but that’s for another post) so the kids hadn’t really ever encountered that before (they’re all U9s and U10s so this is their first travel year)

After shaking his head for a bit, our coach finally stated the obvious. "Well if they were speaking in English, do you think they’d be telling you what they were going to do next? Don’t worry about what they’re saying and concentrate on how they’re playing."

We tried not to laugh too hard but it was funny. It’s not like the kids were that sheltered that they had never heard Spanish before. But it was the first time they had multiple players on the field with them yelling to each other in a different language and it clearly freaked them out a little bit. They settled down after that and managed to pull off a 3-3 draw. Eldest chipped in the final goal over the keeper from a teammate’s sweet cross as time wound down - Soccer Dad was so proud. Anyway, it was a good thing for the kids to learn that they can’t always rely on verbal cues from opponents to react - they need to use their eyes and judge what the opponents are going to do from body language, their eyes, etc.

Apologies to our readers who are fluent in Spanish - I’m sure the title isn’t exactly right. The extent of my Spanish is what comes out of Google’s translation tool which I know is rarely correct grammatically.

Watercolor by Maryann Burton

If you haven’t had a chance to stop by the relatively new blog ‘Culture of Soccer‘ by David Keyes, you should find some time to do so. I found my way there thanks to Josh over at ThroughBall and have enjoyed reading David’s in depth posts about a variety of topics related to soccer and culture. David has been involved with soccer since he was a kid and after blogging non-stop during the 2006 World Cup, he’s turned his writing to the many ways soccer and culture intersect. One post that caught my eye was about ‘Soccer Moms in America‘:

The soccer mom’s emergence came about simultaneously with soccer’s rise in the US. Unlike most countries, in which soccer is played across all classes, soccer’s popularity in the 1970s and 80s was adopted by the middle class. Soccer was seen as friendlier than American football, more active than baseball, and had a certain European sophistication that led to its booming in many middle- and upper-middle class suburbs. In addition to the economic homogeneity, these suburbs were also mostly white. Soccer quickly became the rich white kids’ sport.Within these wealthy, white suburbs, soccer became über-organized. In contrast to the pick-up games played across the world, soccer in the US was played in official practices and games. Organizations such as AYSO (American Youth Soccer Organization), SAY (Soccer Association for Youth), and USSF (United States Soccer Federation) provided the umbrella under which parents organized the game at the grass roots level. Like a PTA on grass, parents organized their children’s teams. Mothers who did so were often dubbed "soccer moms."

There are many interpretations of the term Soccer Mom and I always get a kick out of the political overtones (thanks CNN!) To me that was always just some term the pollsters made up to sound important.

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We recently had some coaches come in to hold a demonstration clinic for our Challenge coaches. They demonstrated a variety of drills they like to run the kids through and it was a lot of fun. They did one thing I found really interesting. They brought a boombox with a CD full of music with a steady, mid-tempo beat (funk, jazz, dance). The kids loved it and when we asked them about it they said at a recent conference someone presented that having music at workouts helped the kids keep moving and they seemed to stay on their toes more and moved about quicker. It sounds like a gimmick, but a number of us watching swore we saw the kids move differently and quicker than usual during drills and even during a scrimmage. Even if it was all in our imagination - it was still fun and the kids had a blast.

So I’m thinking I may need to find a decent boombox for practices as many of my kids were the ‘demo team’ during this clinic and they won’t stop bugging me about it. The trick is finding a decent boombox that won’t get destroyed if we get a little rain. Sony makes a really nice unit that has some water tolerance - but its almost $140! I may just buy a cheap $20 one at Wal-Mart and replace it if it gets wet I could by seven for that price!

Have any of you done music at practice? What music collection have you found the kids liked? I may try some Mega-Mix CDs. If I do end up trying it out, I’ll keep you posted!

Someone recently posted a comment on one of the older NCYSA Academy Proposal posts and it was excellent. I wanted to make sure everyone saw it because I think it’s a post in it’s own right on where youth soccer is today from a parent’s perspective. So I give you ‘Soccer Mom on Soccer’:

Wow, this seems like an extremely complicated way to build a "love for the game". Both of my children play soccer, one at U10 Challenge and one at U11 Classic. They play at this level because they are committed to their teams and to themselves to become better players. We as parents support them and encourage them and have found other sports that they can do on the side for fun that they can just show up to play or attend a practice as able. If they both decided tomorrow that they were tired of the competition that soccer brings and wanted to do something different, certainly I would be a little disappointed because I love soccer, but I would honor their decision. Parents should be able to tell when their child is in over their heads with competition and the bad stress that being in over your head can bring. Many parents bring this on their child by forcing them into soccer situations where the child can’t possibly succeed. I am amazed at how many children there are playing challenge that should be playing rec, but their dad cannot stomach the idea that his son plays rec, while neighbor boy Johnny is on the challenge team in the gold division. If clubs would be more responsible in selecting players for challenge and classic and truly put kids where their skill level and level of committment stand vs. filling in teams with warm bodies so they can have 4 challenge teams, 1 in the copper division who cannot compete with the rec team in that club. But, as usual money talks, and this drives revenue for the club. I’m all for building depth in a program as the kids age up and the rosters grow larger, certainly we need that base of kids at that age to move up. But, if only 70% of the kids on each team need to be there and they are forced to play with 30% who shouldn’t be there, who is the greater loser? …the kid who struggles all year and knows he’s out of his league or the kids who want to be better so badly, but can’t because they don’t have a full compliment of skilled teamates to make them better?

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No matter how many times our DOCs tell us never to shout at our players during a match, we still do from time to time. Over at the NC Soccer Forum, there’s a thread going on about those ‘Cleat In Mouth’ moments we’ve all had as coaches. Here’s one of mine:

I took my Co-ed U10’s to the Rec State Cup since they’d had a really good season and we wanted them to do something many hadn’t done before - travel to a tournament. Our team of 5 boys and 4 girls were playing in the U10 Boys division against all boys teams. I kinda chuckled before some matches when the boys on the other team were giggling that we had GIRLS on our team. Well, one of my girls has a shot that can knock the goal back if it hits the post. In our league when she winds up, kids usually duck because they’ve played against her before.

Anyway, she found herself alone with the ball on the right wing just over midfield and finding nobody open, decided to wind up. One of the defenders figures it’s an easy shot to block so he charges towards her just as she lets loose a rocket. WHAM! This kid took it full bore and barely stayed on his feet. I know he had stitch marks on his stomach.

Now my team had been hesitant to shoot for much of the first half, so being excited that they had finally taken a SHOT, I instinctively yell out ‘YEAH! Do it AGAIN!’

It took me about 3 seconds to realize that really sounded bad - I had to explain to the other coach - "I meant shoot again! not bean your player!" I felt like such an idiot.

Of course this one wins hands down so far. Ooops.

Have you had a cleat in mouth moment as a coach or parent? Do tell!

Man has it been cold outside! I know for those of you up North, this seems funny. But we start our Spring soccer seasons in February here in NC, for practice anyway. For mid February the average temperature range is usually 32°F to 53°F or so. But this year we’ve had an extended cold snap with temps hovering around freezing at 6:30PM (prime practice time) and winds sometimes gusting to 20 or 30+ MPH. Our fields are only protected on the northern and eastern sides so the windchill has been brutal.

Our U5 and U6 teams have rarely practiced, even during the day on Saturday. Our U10 and U12 teams have practiced on and off with even the Challenge teams staying home when the windchill hits the single digits. I had my U10s out this past Sunday and it was insane. The temperatures weren’t as bad as earlier in the week, but the wind was intense. Any drill where the ball left the ground was impossible because of the wind. My poor U8s came out on Wednesday, and it was just too cold. We kicked around for 20 minutes and called it a day. Note the wind speeds in the links above are from a local home that isn’t as exposed as our fields are. I hope to have a weather station put up at the fields soon that’ll track the actual field temperature and wind speed!

Anyway - nothing profound. But this season will be interesting because the teams haven’t had much time to get ready for the matches that start next week. The only good news is a warm spell forecast for the middle of this week. My teams better be ready for some pretty intensive instruction on Wednesday - highs close to 60!!!

I received this recently from one of our league’s sponsors who was thanking the many league volunteers for all they do and had to share it. I thought it was very well put.

Thank "all" of you for the time and effort ya’ll spend making a difference in our children and community. I’m a firm believer that sports help prepare our youth to deal with pressures coming their way. Also, learning to win with dignity and lose with pride while striving to get better is a solid foundation for future leaders.

I should print this out and hand it to certain coaches and parents who sometimes lose sight of why they are there on the sidelines

At the recent NCYSA Annual General Meeting, the VP of Tournaments noted during his annual report that he felt the existence of a ‘State Cup’ for recreational soccer below U13 was inappropriate and felt it needed to be done away with. At the Recreation Council meeting the day before, it was noted that attendance at the Rec State Cup was declining and that something had to be done to ‘offer a better product’ for Recreation Soccer. It was clear the Recreation State Cup was in for some significant changes.

At the Recreation Council Meeting, it was decided that a committee would be formed to assess the current state cup and recommend changes for the council to consider. That meeting took place in late January and the result was significant.

I apologize for not getting notes of this up sooner. I’ve been swamped with local league stuff as we get our Spring season underway. As a usual disclaimer, what I’ve included in this post is the best recollection I have of what happened according to my own notes. If I missed anything and you were there, by all means let me know. This should NOT be considered an official record of the meeting.

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Now that the NCYSA Academy Committee has met, there is a lot of new information regarding the academies and what kind of proposal will actually go before the NCYSA league presidents for approval this Spring.

I apologize for not getting this post out earlier - like many of you, we’re in the think of Spring registration and getting everything organized for the Spring. We’re on track for close to 700 registrations this season, which may seem small by most standards, but considering our league only started 5 years ago in a town of < 10,000 people - it’s a lot. But I digress…

If you haven’t already, be sure to read my earlier posts on the first NCYSA Academy proposal to get up to speed.

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Only the US Army could manage to take a potentially good operation and turn it into an insulting effort of bureaucratic stupidity, putting our troops at risk for nothing. You may recall a while back we wrote about a neat grassroots effort to send soccer balls to kids in Iraq. Soccer is THE sport in Iraq with kids all over playing in dirt lots. While the worsening security situation has driven many children indoors lately, a few years ago things weren’t so dire. So the idea of handing out new soccer balls to the kids was a neat idea that might even generate some good will towards the American soldiers handing them out.

Unfortunately, in one instance it didn’t turned out that way. Salon has an article up about how one Army unit handled the distribution of donated soccer balls [Just watch the ad to get to the article - link appears in upper right corner] We have no way of knowing if they came from Little Feet, Big Goals, or some other benefactor and no matter who they came from, what happened once the balls got there was just sad to read about:

At Forward Operating Base Scunion, the camp’s official name, the lieutenant told Reppenhagen and company to pick up the load of balls from Forward Operating Base Warhorse, which was close by. They would then drive around the towns of Al-Hadid, Hib Hib and Kahlis and hand them out to the kids who often ran beside the Army Humvees and called out for candy, water or money.

After all, nothing is more popular in Iraq than soccer. "There are soccer fields everywhere," Reppenhagen said. "Mostly it is just dirt lots. They don’t have goal posts and so use stumps. Sometimes the kids play in the street. I swear, all they do all day long is play soccer."

So far so good, but you can guess what happens next…

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I get home from playing some pickup, turn on ESPN2, and that voice. THAT VOICE. I thought we were safe. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. What is ESPN doing to us?

Note to self: Never blog about your vasectomy, with pictures, and expect your player’s parents to not find it.

Those of you who have read this blog for a while know I’m, well, opinionated. I’m sure some of my parents have read my stuff, but that doesn’t keep me from spouting off about this or that. But then my parents are used to it for the most part. I’m just being me.

That said, there are SOME things I’m not sure I’d blog about, knowing I’m just a short Google away from some really weird looks from my parents.

Via Plain Jane Mom, we find Dad Gone Mad not only blogged in, um, graphic detail about his recent snipping, he didn’t think his players parents had anything to worry about except catching a clue about little league:

I assumed my profane, depraved, inappropriate rantings were safely tucked away in this dark corner of the Internet and that my online persona would never be seen by the parents of the children I was teaching to stop sticking blades of grass up their noses and focus on the fucking game.

When the season ended, a gathering of those parents approached me and told me they’d been reading about my nuts on the web. They also said that they strongly considered pulling their children from the team and having their husbands kick my ass all the way to Huntington Beach.

Fortunately, no asses were kicked. In fact, I’m back at the Little League field to work with YOUR children. Surprise!

Here are a few things you’ll want to remember as we hold hands and skip through another season of misplayed grounders, erroneous throws and outfield pee-pee dances:

He then proceeds to explain to his new parents the rules according to Coach. In no uncertain terms. You have to read it all. That take brass ones. I’ve been known to set a parent or two straight, and my seasonal ‘Welcome to Soccer’ emails to our parents are legend simply because of their length. However, I don’t think I’ve ever been quite as direct as Dad Gone Mad. #3 still has me laughing.

Have you got a gem of an email you send to your new parents each year? It’ll take something special to top Dad Gone Mad, but share anyway!

UPDATE: And no - I’m not advocating Dad Gone Mad’s coaching style. I just found this situation very funny. We all have interesting stuff out there online. You should Google your name sometime, in quotes. If your name is unique enough it can be kind of scary. I found some really good rants of mine from WAY back that I had forgotten about Have your parents Googled you?

Sorry for being so quiet of late. The spring season is dead ahead and I’ve been busy setting up rosters and dealing with OCD parents, nervous coaches, and every other manner of soccerati.

While I was going through our registrations for the year (almost 700 recreation registrations on our league’s 5th anniversary), I noticed a trend across our divisions that has been fairly consistent over the past few years. Our participation has been 60% male and 40% female for a while. Here is a graphical look at our Spring 2007 registrations:

There is almost no change from Under-5 up through Under-14. Is this common across other leagues? I find this an interesting paradox given how strong our national women’s program is and how passionate young female soccer fans are.

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