Tag: soccer (Page 4 of 9)

Camps and Sports

July 24, 2018 / DB

It is another camp week for us, which means the house is a little quieter. M is spending her week at CYO camp an hour south. We dropped her off Sunday. Although we drove through rain on the way there, we did not have to walk through a deluge to get to her cabin as we did with C in June. M is very excited to be back for her third year there. Five classmates are in her cabin with her. Looks like it will actually be reasonably warm rather than scorching hot while she’s down there, which is a bonus.

Last week L went to soccer camp at Cathedral, her future high school. She was a little nervous about going as no friends were signed up. The camp is for grades 4–9, too, which meant she would be in the youngest group there. When we walked up on Monday morning all we saw were girls that were much bigger than her. I noticed a worried look on her face. I found a coach, introduced myself, and checked to make sure we were in the right spot. “Yeah, you are. Those girls over there are the high school team. They’re here to help.” Thank goodness, because while I have great confidence in L’s game, I had a hard time seeing her playing against 16 year olds.

Still, when I left, I had a strange feeling. She usually jumps right into things but she had a sense of reserve about her. She’s become a bit of a worrier over the past year or so, and something about her demeanor made me start considering her having a bad experience.

The camp was only 2 ½ hours each morning. When I rolled in to pick her up, there was a part of me that wondered if she would be upset about how the morning went, maybe even ask not to go back the next day. But, as I drove up to the fields, I saw her shooting and scoring in drills and figured everything was fine.

She ended up having a great week. The only bummer was her age group only had three other girls in it. The good side of that was she got a lot of reps and attention. One day I saw the head coach’s wife hanging out with her for a few minutes after practice. They were making short kicks to each other, back-and-forth. When she got in the car I asked L what that was about. She said, “She’s trying to get me not to cross my right leg over my left when I kick.” Private instructions from the coach’s wife, nice!

She did say that the other girls in her group were not very good. She had a great time playing with the high school girls, though. We have a couple daughters of friends on the team. One day one of them came over to say hello after practice. I know she was being nice, but she said, “Man, L is a soccer rock star! My head coach even came over and asked who she was and if she was going to play at Cathedral one day!” That made L smile.

They passed out their camp t-shirts on Friday. She did not take it off until we made her on Sunday night.

This is also my busy kickball week. Sign ups ended Sunday so I have to put teams together, get coaches in the system, make sure we have enough uniforms, etc. I’m also toying with the idea of changing how we divide up one group of girls. I’m sure that’s going to piss some folks off, which is always fun.

Our family controversy is that L decided not to play this season. She claims it is because she’s moving up to U12 soccer, that’s going to be harder, blah blah blah. Yeah, U12 is going to be a little tougher. But she’s always done just fine when she’s been a young kid on a team. And the time investment isn’t any different; she’ll still have one practice and game each week. I know that something else is bugging her about kickball, but I can’t figure out what it is. She seemed to enjoy it last year, although she did tell me then she wasn’t going to play this year. I asked her at least 50 times over the past week if she was sure. When we dropped off M at camp, two of the moms who coach L’s grade started chanting at her from the next cabin, “PLAY KICKBALL! PLAY KICKBALL!” Sucks for her teammates because she’s the best player on the team. But I will not force her to play. I’m hoping she does what C did with volleyball when she skipped last year and then, after watching some classmates play, immediately said she’s playing this year. Sunday night L backed off a little and said she’ll play in the spring. My response wasn’t, “That’s great,” or “Awesome!” or “Thanks.” No, I said, “YOU PLAY SOCCER IN THE SPRING, TOO! HOW IS THAT ANY DIFFERENT?!?!?”

Oh well.

M and C are both playing. M’s team will try to defend their (co) City championship in their last season together. C will be on the 6th grade A team and we hope finally putting the best players in that class on one team will get them a division championship.

She’s a Good Egg

May 23, 2018 / DB

Most of my kid posts are a little braggy. But this one is even more braggy than usual.

L wrapped up her soccer season over the weekend. They were playing a crappy team they had played earlier in the week, and this time the other team was missing so many kids that we had to loan them a couple of ours. L had a couple of really nice goals in the first half, both of which involved her beating a defender one-on-one and then ripping a shot from 10–15 feet away from the goal. These goals showed off some power we haven’t seen from her this season.

In the second half she did something that made us incredibly proud. Our team was absolutely dominating possession, even without our prodigy who had to leave at halftime to go play his fourth game of the day with his travel team.[1] The kid that is probably our third most talented player, but has no idea how to play with others, kept getting the ball, refusing to pass to anyone, then taking terrible shots. L saw him waste about five chances to pass to a teammate who had a wide-open chance and had enough. She started getting the ball in midfield, working through the defense, and then trying her hardest to set up two teammates who had not scored all year. She set up her buddy from school for his first goal of the year with a beautiful pass through the defense that ended up right on his foot so he could finish easily. Then she spent 10 minutes trying to get the littlest kid on our team, who really should have been playing down a league but only played up to be with his cousin, a shot. She worked her ass off and gave him at least seven or eight chances, but the poor kid is too small to get to the ball so he kept either helplessly watching it roll by, or not getting a good foot on it. The head coach and I were almost falling over at how many good balls she sent this kid’s way but he just wasn’t physically mature enough to get to them. Meanwhile, if kid #3 got ahold of the ball, he would take on five defenders and refuse to pass away to a wide-open teammate.

I’ve written a lot about L’s soccer exploits here over the years. I’ve never been prouder of her than I was on Saturday. She could have scored 10 or 12 goals, easily. But she worked hard on a hot, muggy day to try to give her teammates a chance to score.

Last week we got an email saying that she had been nominated for an award at school that goes to students who sacrifice in order to make other people’s lives better. This morning was the all-school assembly at which the nominees were announced and the awards given. 20 kids from the entire school made the cut. Alas, she did not win, although one of her best friends did, which was very cool. After she said she knew he would win because, “he’s always giving people hugs.” Hugs are tough to beat.

I was given a copy of her nomination after the ceremony. I don’t know who submitted it, although I’m guessing it was her teacher. In it, they wrote how L has a “wonderful, creative spirit” who is friends with everyone and always works to make sure everyone is included.

That kid does a lot to make us proud. But this week was extra cool.

Seriously… ↩

Kids and Whatnot

May 8, 2018 / DB

We are in the midst of our two busiest weeks of the spring.

Last week the family had a combined eight kickball games in four nights. We swept all eight of them, the closest game being the first of the week. L’s team, which played without five players because of injury/illness/conflicts, came from 10 down to win by one. Most of the rest of the games were comfortable, with a couple run-ruled wins in there.

Last night we had a kickball and soccer practice and tonight begin a run of five games in four nights.

M’s team is in the best shape. They are undefeated and lead their division by a game. They play the second-place team, who they beat by one run in 10 innings a few weeks back, on Wednesday. Win that and the go to the City finals for the fifth time. Lose and they will have to play a single-game playoff to determine the division winner.

L’s team has just one loss, but that was to the first-place team by 30+ runs. They play again on Thursday, but I’m not real confident we can manage a 30-run swing to force a playoff game. C’s team has a couple losses, but have mostly played against teams filled with older girls. Spring of fifth grade is often about toughening the girls up for the fall, when they will play on A teams.

I have a few good kickball stories I’m going to save for next week. We will dive into the 10-inning game M had in great detail.

L’s soccer team is undefeated as well. We made sure we got the prodigy who played for us last fall to sign up again. We figure he will always out-score opponents on his own, so as long as he doesn’t have a conflict with one of the other two teams he plays for, we’re good. They did have to play without him in one of their games last weekend and L picked up the slack, creating shots for her teammates and putting in enough of her own to ensure the win. She’s averaging 5–6 goals a game, but that number is padded by a game when she scored 10. The poor team we were playing that day just was not very good and even pulling our kids back and telling them to work on passing wasn’t enough to slow down our goal scorers.

I mentioned we had a few projects that were keeping me busy during the days. One of them involved getting a new car. We still had six or seven months left on the lease on the Suburban I had been driving for almost three years. We were ridiculously past the miles limit already, so just planned on buying it when the lease ran out.

Our salesman called me a few weeks back to check on our plans. When I told him we would probably purchase it, he said, “Come in and see me. We’ll work something out.”

Ominous words coming from a car salesman!

I went in and a couple days later ended up dropping off the Suburban and driving away in a much nicer Tahoe. I’m still not really sure I understand how this works for them, but they bought us out of our lease with zero penalties or fees. Granted, they put us in a new lease for another 39 months and have a Suburban in very good cosmetic shape with decent miles on their used car lot. But, still, seems like we got the better of the deal.

The Tahoe is much nicer than the Suburban, which is cool. Power everything, leather, etc. where the Suburban was the lowest tier of trim. We lost a seat in the process – the middle row has captain seats instead of a bench seat – but the girls like not being on top of each other. One less kid we can haul to games or practices, though. The big thing is the loss of all that cargo space Suburbans have. That was vital to our lake weekends, so we’re really going to have to rethink how we pack when we head south.

That was good, clean, unexpected fun!

S and I went to her cousin’s wedding Saturday. It was nice and fun. We were all well-behaved, so no good stories to share.

M and I were supposed to head south today for her seventh grade retreat which is always held at the CYO camp down near our lake house. There was a scheduling snafu with busses, parents were asked to transport kids, but only a few of us volunteered, thus the trip got cancelled. M’s class has had a rough few weeks; there have been some broad behavior issues and the entire grade had their school-issued laptops taken from them. When she learned their retreat had been cancelled, she sighed and said, “They all hate us…” Meaning the teachers and administrators. So dramatic. I was cool with not having to get up at 6:00 this morning and spend the day with moody teens. Plus I’m headed to the lake Thursday to take care of some projects down there.

The girls are down to 13 days of school before summer vacation. They are beginning to think ahead about what they’d like to do over break. We already have a number of camps scheduled. We’re going to join the local water park. No trips this year, or at least none that involve traveling out of state. At dinner last night we were throwing out ideas for the days when we don’t have something scheduled. It’s going to get here quick.

Weekend Notes

October 17, 2017 / DB

A quick (and late) rundown on our weekend. Which had a little cray-cray in it.

Saturday was a freaking perfect day. Low 80s, breezy. One of those mid-October days that you wish you could hang onto for the next five months. So of course we spent it blowing leaves at the lake house and then hauling the boat out for the winter.

There was a wrinkle to our winter boat plans this year. The place where our boat was originally purchased, and where we’ve stored it the four winters we’ve had it, went out of business at the end of the summer. We used it not just because it was where the boat came from and because they were an authorized dealer for our brand, but because it was about the easiest major boat place to get to. Once we got it off the rickety, country roads near the lake, it was a straight shot up a county highway. Only two lanes until you hit the city, top speed limit 55. As long as I kept it straight, I was good. And things got much easier two years ago when we upped the size of our vehicle that pulled it.

But now I would have to get on the interstate for at least part of the jaunt to the boat place. I don’t know why, but hauling a trailer and a 3000 pound boat at 65–70 miles per hour stressed me out way more than driving those curving, hilly roads that have nowhere to bail out if you get into trouble. I guess it was because I don’t really know much about trailers and was concerned maybe something was wrong with either our trailer itself, or how we hook it up, that would present itself at 65 on a four-lane interstate but not at 35 on a rural, two-land road.

Everything turned out just fine. Those 10–12 minutes on I–465 were a little white-knuckley, but we made it to the shop without losing the trailer or boat or causing any accidents. She’ll sit there for six months before we get to make the trip back south for the summer of ’18.

BTW, it was in the mid–30s down near the lake this morning, so we got it out right in time.

Sunday was supposed to be L’s last soccer game of the year. The weather turned cold, blustery, and rainy that day, though, so we rescheduled it for tonight.

Our wackiness kicked in Sunday night. Or Monday morning, rather. I heard something kind of bang around that was loud enough to wake me up. Moments later I heard a car door slam and pull away. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was just after 2:00.

We have a Nest camera at our front door, but at night I silence the notifications so I don’t get woken by every moth that flies by. Or spider that builds a web right on the lens, which happened a couple weeks ago.[1] I picked up my phone and there were two new notifications from the camera. I swiped, watched the clips, and ran downstairs. The video showed a couple kids running up to our front door, grabbing some of our Halloween stake lights and the pumpkin L had carved the night before, and then running back to a car parked in front of the house. The banging around I heard was because the dumbass who was harvesting our lights didn’t unplug them from the extension they were on, and a large, plastic pumpkin “chased” him until the cords finally decoupled.

When I got downstairs, they were already gone. I looked around and made sure there was no damage or graffiti or other nonsense, and all appeared fine. I watched the video again. One kid had a hoodie on, but the other kid’s face was partially visible. Unfortunately the headlights from their vehicle kept me from being able to identify the make/model.

I tried to go back to bed but I was a little wound up. It was close to 4:00 before I was out again.

After I got the kids to school I checked with my neighbor, who also has a Nest cam, to see if his video showed anything. On his we could see a couple more kids walking around, that they were driving a Jeep, and that there appeared to be other pumpkins thrown in the back.[2] But the taillights blinded the night vision camera and we couldn’t grab a license number.

Since there was no damage and we were only out about $10, I didn’t file a police report. I just let our HOA know and then sent the videos over to the police in case there were other reports of theft/vandalism at the same general time.

Now what the hell were teenagers doing out at 2-something AM on a Monday morning? Because it was freaking fall break in the district we live in.

I loathe fall break. I think it’s a useless interruption in the academic calendar for schools that remain on the traditional August-May school year. Why the hell do we need two days (or more) off this time of year? It’s not like spring break, when we’ve been suffering through 2–5 months of brutal weather. And it totally screws up youth sports, as different schools being on different break schedules means you go through a three-week period where at least one kid is going to be gone.

You’d think with our kids going to Catholic schools things would be regulated, but they’re not. A few schools in the Archdiocese had their break two weeks ago. Ours is this Thursday and Friday. So while we’re not in any CYO sports right now, plenty of our friends have had to deal with reschedulings because St. Whoever is on break and none of their girls can play basketball on a given weekend.

Garbage.

I have two ideas to fix fall break:

1) As most schools give 2–3 days for fall break, let’s move those to November and give everyone the entire week of Thanksgiving off. That’s when kids need a break, and every year it seems like more families duck out a day or two early anyway.

2) Or even better, GET RID OF THE FUCKING BREAK. It’s useless. Take those added days to bump the beginning of the school year back. Our girls have been starting on a Wednesday or Thursday for several years. Push that back to the following Monday and we have one more weekend of true summer.

I think I’ve found a new cause…

No shit, I had 60 notifications the next morning. In each one you could see the spider slowly moving back-and-forth across the face of the camera and its slowly building web. ↩
My first thought was that these were all going to be placed in one person’s yard, likely a friend or rival from school. Not that I did anything like that with election signs back in the fall of 1988. ↩

Big Night

October 12, 2017 / DB

Some night Tuesday night.

L was attending her first ever Pacers game – a preseason game against a team from Israel – with a buddy from school. Their family gets tickets from a family friend, so several times a year they get to sit on the floor, right next to the basket on the visitor’s end of the court. She was super excited.

So that she was attired properly, I ran out to find her a Pacers shirt. Now I know it was only October 10, we’re in the midst of football season, and the Pacers are kind of a hot mess right now. But I was only able to find one kid-sized shirt in nearly two hours of searching. Basketball capital of America my… Clearly the basketball gods were mocking me, because that shirt was a Victor Oladipo shirsey. You know, the IU alum and general good guy who was the centerpiece of the return for Paul George, but is dramatically overpaid for what he does and drew my ire when the trade went down last July. I presented it to her after school and her reaction was, “Ola-what?!?!” I helped her to pronounce it properly, explained who she was, and she seemed cool with it.

I would have been cooler with a Myles Turner shirsey, but whatevs, it’s not my shirt.

She popped up on TV just seconds into the broadcast. As the teams were walking to mid-court to do the international ball exchange of gifts, we saw her head between two players, tilted up to look at the scoreboard above. We could also tell she and her friend had been playing before the left for the game because her hair was all jacked up. Par for the course with that kid.

All night they were right on the edge of the camera view when the ball was on their end of the court. They were a little hard to see because the two floor cameramen for TV were right in front of them. Three times the ball rolled to them and they got to flip it back to the ref. We also saw the Pacers mascot, Boomer, messing with them a few times. He gave them a sign to hold up, but it was pointed to the crowd rather than the screen. And he gave them the big cat paw gloves he wears and we saw them waving them to the fans around them. They got some pics with Boomer and made the scoreboard screen dancing before the night was over. They were also just feet from Larry Bird, Donnie Walsh, and Kevin Pritchard. I thought about texting the dad to send Lia over to Pritchard to give him some shit about losing the Paul George trade, but figured that wouldn’t work well for anyone.

She got home pretty late, but was so wound up it took her nearly two hours to relax and get to sleep. She had a great time and wants to go back. Hope she’s not disappointed when we are not sitting in the front row next time.

While watching the Pacers game, I was also following the final night of World Cup qualifying on Twitter and the ESPN app. As most of you know, it turned out to be an utter shitshow of a night. The US men’s national team went down 2–0 to lowly Trinidad & Tobago in the first half. But, because both Honduras and Panama were also losing, the US was still in the World Cup at that point. When Christian Pulisic pulled one back early in the second half, it looked like the US would find a way to salvage a tie and move through by the narrowest of margins. But they continued the theme of this qualifying campaign, and sleep walked through the next 40-plus minutes and fell 2–1.

Meanwhile Honduras tied Mexico, then put a ball off the crossbar that ricocheted off the Mexican goalkeeper’s back into the goal to take the lead. And Panama got a very controversial winning goal. The soccer gods were saying, “Yeah, you don’t belong in the World Cup,” to the US.

First time the US won’t play in the World Cup since 1986.

It was both a disaster and a completely deserved fate for this team. Whether the fault of the players, the two coaches who have guided them through this 18-month process, or the folks who run US Soccer, this team looked terrible throughout the qualifying games. They played with disinterest, got pummeled far too often, and never found the spark they needed to beat teams they should have beaten. They didn’t deserve to go to Russia. I guess this saves them the embarrassment of being the worst team in the tournament as they were in France ’98.

Not only do they miss the next World Cup, but if they somehow get their shit together and qualify for the 2022 World Cup, that one will be played in the fall, when most of the US is focused on football and the baseball playoffs. The USMNT is going to have a very hard time moving the needle in the US again until 2026. Along the way they may waste the prime of Pulisic, the first “Savior of American Soccer” who appears deserving of that title.

Oh well. I root for the USMNT because I’m an American, and I hope someday they can consistently go deep into international tournaments. But I’m generally rooting for Italy in the World Cup, and whatever other teams are joys to watch in that particular year. Or against the countries I don’t like. The US not being in Russia doesn’t mean I’m not going to watch the World Cup.

Winding Down the Seasons

October 9, 2017 / DB

The last big, kid sports weekend of the fall is in our rearview mirror.

C ran at the City championships on Saturday. That’s where she ran the best race of her life a year ago to finish 6th in the 3rd/4th grade race. This year it was much warmer and very windy, so not ideal running conditions. But coming off the 5th/6th grade girls winning the biggest meet of the regular season three weeks ago, we were hoping they could add a City title.

The course is great for runners in that it’s very flat. It’s great for spectators because you can see the runners several times as they wind back-and-forth if you’re willing to move around. We caught them near the 1K mark and our girls were doing great. The sixth grader who has won every race this year was well out in front. Our two other fast sixth graders were together in the low teens. And C and her fifth grade buddy were in the high teens. We yelled at C that she was doing great then cut back across the field to catch her again.

When they came through this time, our leader was still way out in front, but one of her classmates had fallen back. And C and moved up. She was 11th with just under half the race to go. More yelling of encouragement then over to the finishing stretch.

Our sixth grader cruised to another win, finishing her perfect season. A reminder that she never ran competitively before this year. She’s incredible. Our next sixth grader came over the rise at #9. Then the waiting and counting. C appeared in the 14th spot, but she looked like she was struggling. We yelled and then I ran with her, yelling from the side, for the last 200 yards. “COME ON, C! KEEP GOING, C! YOU’VE GOT IT, C! STRIDE OUT, BABE!” A girl passed her with about 100 yards left and another was closing. I ran faster and yelled louder, but she was clearly on fumes. That girl caught her right at the line, putting her in 16th place.

She didn’t set a PR – she was 11 seconds slower than her City time from a year ago – but it was still her fastest race of the year by nearly 30 seconds.

She was the third St. P’s finisher.

She was the fifth fifth grader to finish.

She beat 112 other girls.

A pretty good day for her!

We had three more races to wait through before we got official results. During that 90-minute stretch all the St. P’s parents were walking around asking where everyone finished, and seeing if anyone was counting for other schools. Our top four, who score for the team competition, were all in the top 19. We just weren’t sure if anyone else squeezed in four runners in front of them.

Turns out a school we hadn’t run against all year had four in the top 15, which was good enough to edge our girls by five points for the team title. That girl that nosed out C? Yep, she was on the winning team. Fortunately those points were not the difference, as that would have only cut it to a three point difference.

Still a great day for our girls. They got another trophy and got recognized at school this morning. Football has another month left, but so far that group of girls are the only St. P’s athletes to add any trophies to the school lobby. And each time C has been one of the girls earning points for her team.

For the year C placed in every race she ran, had one top–10 finish, and twice was the #3 finisher from St. P’s. Not bad for being in the younger half of the age group.

L had two soccer games this weekend. We missed Saturday’s game while we were at the XC meet. She scored three goals in a 12–0 win. Sunday she scored three more in a 13–1 win. She’s so humble. When she scored her third goal yesterday, she turned and looked at me and said, “That’s a hat trick!” She has 13 goals on the year with one game to play. As good of a weekend as that was for L, our best player scored nine on Saturday and six on Sunday.

Since I was at Sunday’s game I can claim a very proud coaching moment. We have a kid that is huge; he looks more like a sixth or seventh grader. He’s both tall and wide, so he’s not the most mobile or graceful kid in the world. He really struggles to control the ball. We’ve been working with him all year to not worry about taking the perfect shot. If the ball’s on your foot, hit it. What we don’t tell him is that everyone is afraid of him and they’re going to get out of the way when he winds up. He scored a goal a couple weeks back, but remained reluctant to shoot. Partially because he hits the ball so hard that it often sails well over the crossbar.

This week we put him up front and told him to stay there. Don’t chase on defense and waste your energy. Sit up front and when the ball goes forward, get into the box. He scored our first goal on an absolutely beautiful kick. He took his time, got the ball lined up, and ripped it past the goalie from outside the box. It was 1–0 for a long time before L put us up 2–0. Then the big kid scored two quick goals to break the game open. When we subbed him out we were high fiving him and telling him how awesome he was playing. I high fived our head coach and jokingly told him he had tapped into the potential coaches had been trying to get out that kid for the past two years.

On the other hand, we have a couple kids who have no idea what’s going on. Worse, one of them whines all the time, tries to score on our goalie, or gets stuck way out of position. Yesterday we had him playing defense. At first he was drifting forward and we told him to get back in his position. He gave us his usual response, a whiny “WHY?” She he shuffles his feet back to position, head down, pouting. We yell at him to watch the game and he finally picks his head up to see the ball slowly rolling toward him.

Does he run up and kick it forward, like he’s supposed to? No.

Does he trip and fall and let the other team get a clean shot on goal? No.

Does he settle the ball then turn and shoot it on his own goal, as he’s done multiple times this year? No.

Nope, instead he kneels down, puts his hands out, and waits to pick the ball up as if he’s the goalie.

The best thing about this play was the the ball was rolling very slowly, no one from the other team was chasing it, and he was on the opposite end of the field of us. It was like it was all happening in slow motion. The head coach and I were screaming at him not to touch the ball. But, sure enough, he picks the ball up and hugs it close. Free kick for the other team.

The referee told him what he did wrong and he put his head down, stood in the middle of the penalty box, and pouted while the game continued. He’s lucky his head and assistant coaches are pretty laid back dudes. We just looked at each other and muttered, “What the hell is he doing?”[1]

Later in the game this kid asked to play goalie. When we said no his response was, “But I’m one of the best defenders on the team!” Before you say, “Well he did make a good goalie play there,” I’ll let you know the two times we’ve put him in goal this season he’s literally run away from the ball when he had a chance to pick it up. One time he made an amazing save as he fled. He had his back to the ball, was running away, and the ball pinned between his legs. He tripped and fell, but he saved the shot!

We have a group of about four knucklehead boys on the team, that kid included. They never pay attention, at practice they’re always pushing each other, kicking each other’s balls across the field when we’re trying to do drills, etc. I spend about 35% of practice yelling at them to shut up and listen to what the head coach is trying to teach them. Last week I got sick of telling them the same thing over-and-over and told them the next time someone kicked a ball when they weren’t supposed to, they were going to have to run laps.

Mr. Best Defender on the Team raised his hand and said, “What’s a lap? I want to run one! Coach, what’s a lap?”

I just walked away. Later I told the head coach and he muttered, “Make him fucking run it if he wants to run one.”

Youth sports!

Also fun is apparently S yelled the same thing from where she was sitting, not knowing the kid’s mom was right in front of her. I think the mom is kind of used to it, though, and may have said the same thing. ↩

Hot, Sweaty Weekend

September 25, 2017 / DB

Our September heatwave continues. This weekend would have been a great weekend to sneak in a weekend at the lake. Naturally we had sports both days, so had to just stand/sit and roast in the heat.

It was a doubleheader weekend for L in soccer. Her team played at 4:00 Saturday, which was probably the hottest moment of the last 4–5 days: mid–90s, humid, no clouds or breeze to help out. The parents who were watching were wisely camped out in the shade. Those of us who had to coach got beaten down by the sun for an hour. It felt more like early August than late September. As if playing in the heat wasn’t tough enough for the kids, the fields are covered in crabgrass, hard as rocks, and just a beast to try to control the ball on. Even our best player kept having the ball bounce away from him as it hit a rut or patch of crabgrass. L scored one goal as we won easily.

Sunday she played again at 1:00. It was marginally cooler, and there was a slight breeze, so it wasn’t quite as bad for the players. It was also the first time this year our kids have been matched up with a team that was bigger than them at every position, and had a good understanding of how to play. We were deep into the first half before either team scored. We went down 1–0 and L answered right back to tie it. We got behind again and she pounded a shot home from the 18-yard line to level things again just before halftime. Second half was the same story: they took a lead, L scored on a beautiful pass from our best player to tie. We actually took a lead on a free kick by our stud, but gave one back on a free kick. Ended up 4–4 in a pretty well-played game. L is sitting on seven goals through four games. She’s starting to learn how to play off our best player, who probably has closer to 14 goals despite usually only playing half of the game.

Sunday was also cross country day. St. P’s was the host school and we bumped up the start times a couple hours to try to avoid the heat. So C and I were downtown at 7:20 to help set up. It was just starting to get uncomfortable when she ran. I don’t have her time yet, but she definitely struggled compared to a week ago. She finished in the ribbons – at #19 – but was the fifth St. P’s finisher this week. Looking back, she’s never run well on this course for some reason. She has one more regular meet this Saturday before the City championship meet on Oct. 7. Hopefully it has cooled off some by then.

We were also babysitting this weekend. One of the young nephews spent four days and nights with us, as my sister-in-law had a work trip. He was pretty easy: he went to bed without fuss at 8:00 each night and usually slept until 7:15, when we woke him to get the girls to school Thursday and Friday, or later on the weekend when he woke himself up. He’s mobile and lots of fun. The girls had a great time getting him to repeat his animal sounds or say his other handful of words. He loves – LOVES! – ceiling lights and fans. Anytime he walks into a room, he looks up, and if he sees a light, he is utterly delighted.[1] Saturday afternoon we filled up our inflatable pool and the other two young nephews came over to splash around with him.

Yes! ↩

Big Ol’ Sports Notebook

September 14, 2017 / DB

I had hoped to wrap up the kickball regular season today. But Irma’s remnants turned yesterday into a drizzly mess, and our biggest game of the year was postponed. More on that in a bit.

M ended her season last week. Her team finished up 5–1 and claimed second place in their division. Just that opening game loss to their arch-rivals, who will no doubt crush someone in the City title game next week. M had a decent season. She kicked better at times. Sometimes she fielded well, sometimes she still got the hell out of the way of the ball when it whizzed by her. As always, though, she was excited to hang out with her classmates and be part of the team. Amazingly, late in the season, she was actually asking me to go out and practice with her. Maybe I get her to kick the ball through the infield by the spring season.

C’s season ended Monday in crushing fashion. They were out of the running for the division title, but were playing the team that was in first place. They played earlier in the season with C’s team losing by 7. Monday, C’s team controlled the game through the first six innings. They got the lead early, played great defense, and kept scoring enough to stay ahead. She had a three-run homer early in the game. Going into the 7th inning, they were up by 2 runs. Then came a total meltdown. They gave up 23 runs! It was brutal to watch, as they made mistake after mistake in the field. Bobbling the ball. Throwing to the wrong base. Turning their back on runners and letting the advance. Girls standing and watching while the ball rolled by them. Everything bad that could happen did. The other team didn’t kick a ball out of the infield and still managed to go through their order nearly three times. C’s team got two runs back in their half, but that wasn’t enough to even make it a respectable loss.

A week earlier C’s team played an amazing game against our big rivals St B’s. Both teams scored two runs in the first, and single runs the next two innings. And then it remained tied 4–4 all the way through to the seventh inning. Neither team kicked particularly well that day, but both teams were playing amazing defense. In the top of the seventh we got a runner on, moved her to second, and then got a ball through the infield to bring her around to take the lead. C made all three outs in the bottom of the inning and we had a 5–4 win. Normal games between good teams are still usually in the teens. You never see 5–4 games!

C was amazing in this game. She took three absolutely monster line drives off various parts of her body – she basically caught one with her lips – and the game had to be stopped so we could check on her. Once she shut off the tears, she made every damn play in the infield. She threw people out at first. She threw people out at third. She beat people running home. She caught at least four balls in the air. She didn’t do much at the plate, but her defense saved the day. After the game two of the girls from St B’s came over to check on her to make sure she was ok, which I thought was incredibly cool.

C made a big jump this year from good player to arguably the best player in her grade.[1] She’s still a little inconsistent kicking, but when she connects she can blast the ball on a line that is almost impossible to catch. As I’ve shared, she’s generally an excellent fielder. Her area to work on is true to her personality: she just needs to take a deep breath and calm down sometimes. You can see her getting worked up, whether by a bad call, an injury, or just the game getting extra stressful. She starts running around a little too fast, looking nervously around, unsure of her play. But, as an older brother of a teammate said, for the most part “C is a beast!”

Now for L. Through a schedule quirk, her team played the two weaker teams in her division two times each before they were set to finish the season with two games against the other good team. In their final game against a weak team, our girls played their worst game of the year. If they were older, you would say they overlooked St L because they had beaten them by 30 runs the first time they played. I’m not sure if 3rd graders think that way, though. Anyway, we were behind the entire game until L kicked a three-run, walk-off homer in the bottom of the 6th to win it.[2]

On to the final two games against St. S to see who goes to City. I watched the first two innings of the first game before I had to leave to get M to her game. While there L kicked her seventh homer of the year to tie it. Midway through M’s games I started getting texts that we had won by 12, but it was really controversial. All I heard that night was the other coach was kind of crazy and some of the St S parents were complaining about a specific call.

Then, the next day, I get a call from our head coach saying that the St S coach had pulled her team off the field at the end of the 5th inning thinking the game was over. The umpire asked her if she was sure, twice, and the coach insisted yes, she was done. I have no idea why she did this, and her story has changed a couple times since the game. Anyway, there was a call to the league office the next day from St S and we were instructed that we had to play the final inning of the game when we went to St S to end the season. Since a division championship is at stake, they want every game played to completion. Which I kind of understand. But, also, she pulled her damn team off the field! She gave up! Twice!

Yeah, the other coaches and I have had some interesting conversations about these events for several days now.

So last night was supposed to be the final night of the regular season for us. And then it rained. We’re still trying to lock in the makeup time, but it looks like Friday we’ll go out there, play an inning, take a quick break, and then play a full game. If either team wins both games, they go onto City. If there’s a split, we’ll have to play a tie-breaker game next week.

The good news is we lead by 12 in the “suspended” game, and we will kick first. Bad news is we’re near the bottom of our lineup. But if we can get some girls on and turn the lineup over, we have a great chance to really extend the lead. Good news is we played excellent defense last week and never let St S score more than 5 runs in an inning. The bad news is we had one 20-run inning and the rest of the game was kind of a struggle on offense. But I think we learned some stuff about St S’s defense that will help us.[3]

The best part of all of this was how everyone was pissed off about it. At cross country on Sunday I was suddenly in the middle of a group of parents who were asking, basically, “What the hell happened?!?!” Most of these parents don’t even have kids playing kickball, they had just heard about it through the school grapevine. St S allegedly had a couple crazy parents at the game last week. Their coach is an odd duck. The other coaches and I keep reminding ourselves to take deep breaths before the game when we finally play. Last night L told me not to worry, “We’re going to beat them.” Oh boy…

Oh, cross country. C ran her first individual race of the year last week. She ran kind of slow – I don’t think she practiced at all the previous week because of kickball – but still managed to take 13th in the 5th–6th grade race. That got her a ribbon. St P’s is really strong in this age group. There’s a sixth grader who has never run before who won the race by nearly two minutes! We had five girls place, which means they have a great chance to win City next month.

And, finally, L’s soccer season began Sunday. She scored two goals and they won, although we almost pissed the game away late when we had a couple kids in goal and on defense who were literally running away from the ball rather than trying to, you know, defend it. I’m helping coach this team so more about that later.

The interesting thing, though, is that for the first time ever L is not clearly the best player on her team. There is another kid who is freaking amazing. And he’s just a little guy, barely bigger than her. He’s so good that he’s playing on an older age-group team, too, and had to leave our game at halftime to go play with them. When he was on the field, we almost never gave up possession and could have scored about 20 goals instead of the five we had at halftime. And he’s not just a scorer. He’s an amazing dribbler and passer. He would get the ball, cut it out wide, see L in the middle, and rifle a perfect pass through traffic right onto her foot so she could immediately control it. Both of her goals came off passes he made to set her up. I really hope this kid plays a full 50 minutes for us each week!

We have two 5th grade teams, so while I’m sure she was the best on her team, I think a couple girls on the other team deserve consideration for that honor, too. ↩
Third and fourth graders play six innings; fifth and up play seven. ↩
The guy doing our bathroom project has a girl on our team. Last Friday while his painter was doing some work, we talked for about 90 minutes on how to defend them better. ↩

Sports, Sports, Sports

August 28, 2017 / DB

We are officially in the busiest stretch of the year for us. Right in the middle of kickball season. First cross country meet was last Saturday. Soccer practice begins this Wednesday. For the next two weeks we’ll have five teams cranked up and rolling through practices and games/meets.

C had a solid sports weekend. Friday night she had a kickball game. They run-ruled their opponents in six innings. She had two singles, a double, and a home run. And, once again, she played amazing defense. She had two innings as either pitcher or suicide in which she accounted for all three defensive outs of the inning. The dad keeping score with me was incredulous, “How did she catch that? What do you do, just crush balls at her at home all the time?” I could just shrug.

The best part about her defense is how she has no poker face about it. After the first out she’ll look around in surprise, like she can’t believe she made the catch. After the second she’ll start giggling. While making the third out, she’s flat out laughing. She could be a stone-cold killer of a player if she was as competitive as some of the girls out there. I’m kind of glad she still looks at it as a silly game.

At her cross country meet the next day a mom of one of her teammates, who was not at the game, came up to me and said, “My 7th grader texted me from the game last night and said ‘C.B. just played the greatest kickball game I’ve ever seen!’.” That might be exaggerating a little; one of his classmates has had some amazing games. But it was still cool to hear.

As for cross country, the first meet of the year is always a crapshoot. You’re not sure how a month’s worth of training will pay off. How will the kids react to running competitively for the first time of the year? How will they manage getting some food – but not too much – into their bodies before the race? This meet throws another curve at the kids as it is a relay event. Kids have a partner and take turns running 1K at a time until they’ve run 6K as a team. While it’s a good way to ease into the season, for some reason this format seems to throw a lot of kids.

New for us this year was C moving up to the 5th/6th race, so no longer was she running first. We watched the 3rd/4th race and soooo many kids were crying at the end. Good times.

Anyway, C was running with her buddy E, as they are the only two St. P’s 5th grade girls this year. They were both consistently in the top 10 of their age group last year, so we were eager to see how they did. During the race they both seemed to struggle. E got the hilly side of the course and hadn’t run a bunch of hills yet. C just looked off; she seemed to be running with choppy steps instead of smooth ones. Boys and girls ran together, so I was doing my best to count where they were amidst the packs of kids. I had them finishing 12th or 13th. We got the results Sunday night and they were actually 11th. Four seconds faster and they would have edged out one of the St. P’s 6th grade teams for the last ribbon. Not too shabby! I think hearing that helped C understand that just because she’s running against older girls doesn’t mean she’s not still competitive.

After the race she said her knees hurt from kickball the night before. Plus she’s been fighting a cold, although she said that didn’t affect her as much as her knees did.

If the weather cooperates, we have a packed schedule this week. L has two kickball games, tonight and Thursday, against the two teams they beat last week. M has a doubleheader tonight and another game Wednesday. C has games Tuesday and Thursday. We’ll try to run her tonight, although her cold has gotten worse and she may take the night off. And L has soccer practice Wednesday.

Friday is a night off from kid sports, but we plan on going to the local high school football game that night before our last lake weekend of the summer.

Finishing Off and Starting Up

May 22, 2017 / DB

Last weekend of spring, last week of school. Just four more mornings of an alarm at 6:35 and the normal grumpiness as the girls and I navigate the time between me waking them up and dropping them off at school each day.

We set the stage for the summer by putting the boat into the water on Saturday. We’ve usually done it a week or two earlier, but had a good excuse for waiting this year. Our big project for 2017 was to have a new boat shelter and deck built. The existing boat house was not sturdy enough to hold a boat lift safely, nor was it wide enough to install a drive-on style lift. Our lake is really clean – the conservancy always brags that it’s the second clearest in Indiana – but it would be better for the long-term health of our boat to get it up and out of the water when we’re not using it.

We met with contractors last October, went back-and-forth on the quote for awhile, and sent in the deposit just before Christmas. Then we sat and waited and hoped that the winter was mild enough for them to get started in time to finish before Memorial Day weekend. They kicked things off in early April and other than a few days lost to storms, have hammered it out. There are still a few details that need to be wrapped up, and hopefully those will all be done with week. But last week we got the ok to go ahead and put the boat on the lift. So we dodged some crazy, heavy rain and got the boat in, along with a lot of yard work, on Saturday. We had to come back that evening, so only got one quick lap around the lake in.

The girls did take advantage of the new deck area. We have both a large deck that extends from our shoreline, and a “party deck” above the boat lift. The water was fairly warm, so all three took their first leaps off the party deck ten feet down into the lake. I think that’s going to be very popular with the young people. We’re headed down this Saturday for the holiday weekend with family, including the first birthday for one of the new nephews.

L wrapped up her soccer season Sunday. We were really worried in warmups, because the other team both looked huge and had some kids that could kick the crap out of the ball. L’s team dominated possession early, but gave up a goal against the run of play and we wondered if that was the beginning of another thrashing. But our kids stayed cool, kept the ball in the offensive end of the field, and tied it right before halftime. They took the lead shortly after halftime when L hammered one home from about 15 feet out. Eventually they went up 4–1 before giving up one late goal and dodging a couple near-misses to hold on for a very satisfying win. It was the best they played as a team all year. They worked together, passed, charged down every loose ball, and didn’t make too many defensive lapses.

I believe L ended the season with 10 goals, which I’m about 90% sure was highest on the team. Having a five-goal game will pad your stats a little bit. She had a lot of fun again. Last night S and I had the first discussion about moving her to a more competitive league next year. We’re anti-travel sports at this age,[1] but several of the travel programs around us have rec leagues that could be a step up for her. When she’s 11–12, if it looks like she’s good enough for travel soccer, we’ll put more thought into it. For now we’re good with one game per week at the same location each week.

Tuesday is the last spring sports day of the year for us. M’s team finally plays for the city kickball championship. There was a rain postponement in the other division that extended their season until last week. Then we had to dodge the city track meet and a parish festival, thus the game being pushed to this week. The team we expected to win the opposite division did. So they’ll face a team that can really kick but may not be as strong in the field as our girls are. I’m already getting nervous.

I want to emphasize travel sports don’t work for our family at this age. We’re not saying they’re bad for other families, or judging families that are all-in early. We’ve just always said we will balance the three girls’ interests, and putting an 8-year-old in a travel league gets in the way of that philosophy. ↩