[lookout123]

We are preparing for the big tournament a week from saturday. We have one practice of normal technique, systems, and drills and two scrimmages each week.

Another club in the area had some problems and their team split up. They had one player that we'd watched and been impressed with and his parents brought him to our practices this week to try out. His technique is excellent but Monday left me unimpressed with his work ethic and a hint of petulance. HC saw the kid's footwork and nothing else. HC was almost jumping up and down with joy at having this kid.

Tuesday night brought a quick end to that thought. We scrimmaged another team in our age group and absolutely dismantled them. Lil Lookout, Bi, and Ba had some excellent passing movement down. P (the new kid) was excellent with the ball but wasn't passing at all. After that scrimmage we turned around and scrimmaged a team from an age group up. They're bigger, stronger, and much more physical but our kids are actually more skilled. Again our kids were doing well, but now they started getting upset when they'd call for the ball and P would choose to dribble into a crowd instead of passing. This happened repeatedly and we tried coaching P on the issue but he just rolled his eyes and went back to doing his thing.

On one play Bi had the ball under pressure and passed out to LL who one touched it about 20 feet into P. At that point P had about 5 feet of space and then hard pressure. He had Ba open on his right, LL WIDE open on his left but decided to bulldoze his way through instead. He inevitably lost the ball at which point LL and Ba jumped on his case again about passing. Apparently he didn't like the criticism because he coldcocked Lil Lookout. He just caught him right on the jaw and dropped him. At that point Ba, Da, Bi, and Br jumped on top of him and started punching. We pulled them off and made the whole team run laps for a bit while discussing the issue with P's dad. Apparently, that type of thing has happened before so we have passed on the opportunity to have P play with us. Whatever.

Lil Lookout has received a very valuable lesson: If you are going to jump someone's shit, you'd better be fully prepared for the consequences. He didn't deserve the punch, but it won't do him any harm to be taken down a notch either. (I didn't point out, but did note that the whole team was prepared to jump in and defend one of their own. I'll count that as a positive for teambuilding)