The Ducks
Watching seven-year-old girls play soccer is like watching ducks attack a piece of bread in a pond.
And this is a vast improvement from coaching five-year-old boys.
Soccer field — 10:45 A.M.
We have arrived early so that I can put on my five-year-old son Matt’s shin guards and cleats. This process should take five minutes, but somehow devolves into a twenty-minute affair each time since Matt can’t sit still and complains his cleats are uncomfortable four times before he reluctantly agrees to wear them.
Game time
I volunteered to be one of the coaches, but with boys playing, I’m one of many fathers willing to help. There are a number of fathers who have determined that their child will be a great athlete, and being hands on from the beginning gives them a sense of control over this.
Every game, I hear this:
“Come on David, that’s a poor effort.” This one father always chastises his son when he isn’t dominating the action enough. The father is an uncouth schlub. It’s always the uncouth schlubs who weren’t athletes themselves and are living vicariously through their kids.
I have no such delusions about my son. So in recent weeks, I have taken a step back and only help out when needed.
This of course does not mean I’m not busy. In a fifty-minute game, my time is spent as follows:
1. 10 minutes — me resisting the constant urge to kick the ball
2. 10 minutes — water breaks
3. 10 minutes — telling Matt a water break is coming soon, that he needs to run after the ball, which includes a bribe of money for the snack bar afterwards
4. 10 minutes — yelling at Matt for not paying attention to the game, and threatening not give him money for the snack bar afterwards
5. 10 minutes — hoping Matt has other career options
I’d recap the actual game, but there’s nothing to recap. Kindergarten boys have no attention span. There are one or two kids who are partly engaged. The rest are simply negotiating and demanding water breaks and for the game to end.
Postgame
“You told him he can get two snacks?” I ask my wife, Lauren.
“He did the best he could.”
“The best he could? I was making bets with another Dad on whose kid would sit in the grass in the middle of the field more times.”
“Did you win the bet?”
“Yes.”
“Good, so you give him money for the snacks.”
Lauren has no interest in actual earned rewards. She’s more interested in getting through the day and to bedtime. I complain, but I sort of feel the same way.
Matt heads to the playground, which is far enough away that one of us should go with him, but we don’t. We just can’t imagine anyone wants to kidnap him and deal with all of his demands for snacks.
I start putting shin guards and cleats on my seven-year-old daughter, Liz. Liz brings a different set of equipment challenges. She’s far less uncomfortable in her cleats, but her wardrobe is infinitely more important to her, and this takes time. We have to deal with:
1. Hair — Pigtails are the latest choice and take time to get right. Lauren usually does it, but sometimes I am at the field with her by myself, and I need to execute.
“No bumps, Daddy.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”1
2. Jersey — This should be fairly straightforward, but is not. Like with baseball, we use a hairtie on the back of the jersey. With soccer, we have gone a step further and Liz has cut her jersey so that it has ruffles everywhere.
3. Jewelry — A fight every time, as she insists on wearing a necklace. Because why not wear a piece of metal around your neck that someone could grab onto and strangle you?
Game time Part 2
First and second grade girls are worlds better at soccer than kindergarten boys.
I am the coach of Liz’s team and spend the entire game involved and moving the game along. Technically there is a referee, but it is a high school student who may or may not be alive while the game is going on.
There are two separate goals for each team to score on. So that we can make it as confusing as possible.
There are no goalies (though a few girls don’t seem to have gotten the memo), the game is 50 minutes, we keep score, and it gets somewhat exciting. No it doesn’t.
A lot of stuff goes wrong too, though.
It usually starts before the game, when we’re picking positions and certain girls need to be with their friends. They cling onto each other and it turns into an excluding others affair that hurts someone’s feelings.
Then the game starts and all the ducks converge on the bread. Technically, they had positions ten seconds ago when the game started, you know the one where they can stand next to their friend. But once the ball is kicked, it all goes out the window.
“Hey, stop pushing,” one girl says to Liz.
As they fight for the ball in a small area, there is a lot of kicking and pushing. Shin guards are helpful to their bodies, but not to their offended personalities. Every game there’s an argument or fight when someone is too rough with someone else. And every game I have to say the following:
“Girls, it’s okay, you don’t have to get mad when someone bumps into you. You’re playing soccer. There is going to be contact.”
Every game, someone is going to run off the field crying because she got hurt, or there was a bee within a mile of her, or someone on the other team said they didn’t like her clothes.2
Every game, half the girls will instinctively use their hands. Also Liz.
Every five minutes, the laces on someone’s cleats will come untied. I then bend down and tie it while the game continues around me, and almost get kicked in the face twenty different times.
Every time the ball goes out of bounds (which is like every 10 seconds for some reason even though the field is wide. These girls have no peripheral vision apparently), every girl will raise her hand that it is her turn to throw or kick the ball in. I then need to remember who went last, and I will inevitably forget and upset a kid and then her parent.3
And yet, it’s not entirely a disaster. Sure, some girls are better than others, but at this age, all we’re asking for is for them to care. Most of them — including Liz, who’s small but fast and super aggressive for some reason that I hope isn’t related to mental health — are engaged for most of the game.
Liz and her friends in particular loves to score goals so they can get excited and rub it in the opposing teams face. Essentially, they are just competitive and evil enough to play sports.
Today, Liz scored three goals and her team won 9–7. Of the sixteen goals, at least fourteen were followed by poor sportsmanship.
I try to tell them to be nice. I put on a show as the voice of reason who just wants both teams to do well.
“The score isn’t important.”
But after spending an hour with Matt and his buddies and the grass (and mindful that we may be terrible parents who reward our kids improperly, allow our children to be kidnapped, and have a daughter who bends the rules), I kind of don’t mind the competitive spirit. I respect the duck who gets the bread. I tried to be gluten free. I couldn’t do it. Bread tastes good.
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