|
This is the third in a 5 Tips Series, looking at the positive role Lead Dads can play when it comes to kids and sports. The first tip looked at the cost of kids’ sports. Last week talked about scholarship hopes. This week we’re looking at Dads and coaching.
My middle daughter asked me to coach her rec league soccer a few years back. I said yes immediately. Why wouldn’t I encourage her interest in soccer?
Then reality set in. I know nothing about soccer. I played it for a few years as a small child and that was it. I didn’t know how many people were on a team, let alone basic strategy.
But I told myself, how intense could 3rd grade rec league soccer be?
Very, it turns out.
There were four teams, and ours – the orange team - was the only one without a ringer. This was a huge, practically insurmountable disadvantage. (Or maybe if the coach knew what he was doing we’d have fared better!)
The red team was the worst. Its star player was a kid to behold: so fleet-footed - weaving, cutting, driving for yet another goal - she seemed destined for USA Soccer’s under 4-foot-tall national squad.
At one point, I approached the red team coach – whose daughter was the ringer – and asked if he might encourage her to pass the ball. By this point in the season, I’d been reading extensively about the mercy rule.
No dice. He looked at me like I was an even worse father than I was a coach for asking such a thing. Passing? Not winning – or in this case, dominating? I might as well asked him to get her to tank the game (which for what it’s worth counted for nothing.)
We lost that game. We lost every game.
I tried to make the games as fun as they could be for the girls. There’s lesson in losing; we learned that in spades. There are also plenty of lessons from winning, which we didn’t get to that season – or the next one. I had a blast being out there with my own daughter and enjoyed building a connection with the other girls on the team.
|
