Kid's sports - parent's perspective needed

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Griff

The guy who ran the developmental program lil' Griff is in just got picked up for rape.

Aw, Jesus Griff. That's horrible. Please tell me it didn't actually involve a child?

[Griff]

Sorry to take this thread off the rails... I don't have much info but the guy ran travel teams with older girls like 15-17. I believe his issues are related to that group of girls. Lil' Griff's contact was negligible. Some of the travel team girls acted as his assistant coaches in the skills program she attends. He actually spent more time teaching the game to parents while the older girls worked with the younger ones. If this all turns out to be true, it looks like he was trying to gain the trust of parents. He's a leg shaver, so I had my doubts about him from the start. They're gonna love him in prison.

[Griff]

Crap. Local paper headline this morning: Sex Case Widens Against Coach
3 counts felony first degree rape
child pron case as well
one incident took place at the sports complex where my kid goes

[classicman]

OMG - That is terrible, just terrible.

[lookout123]

And back on topic...

Another Saturday another game. This week we faced what I figured would be a real bogie team for us. I've seen them play and they have three kids that are just awesome little grinders. They'll wear you down because they never stop, they pass well, and they can shoot. I had all but one of my players back today so I expected a really nice close game. The ref quit changing the scoreboard in the 6th minute and the other team didn't score until the final two minutes. I didn't count but one of my detail focused parents said that we had 21 goals in the game.

My two most defensive girls scored 5 between them. After his 4th goal lil lookout was instructed that he could only shoot another goal after he got an assist - with a specific player getting the goal. I changed that when I saw him dribble up next to their keeper, turn, shout the teammate's name, and shoot the ball straight at her so the ball bounced in the goal. Not what I meant by an assist, but he gets points for creativity. From that point on he was only allowed to shoot left footed or with his head. He finished with 9 goals. Every single player scored except one boy who refuses to cross the center line. He's just a happy little defender. The kids played great - they passed as a team, they defended as a team, they surged forward as a team. They had fun and to hell with the score - anyone could see I rotated the players through every position.

But the kicker and the "would you believe it?" moment for me was when lil lookout disobeyed me for his last goal. He had made a series of what I thought were really sloppy passes from the centerline into the box. I was curious but not concerned when he ran to the sideline, grabbed a drink of water and said "watch my next kick". Sure enough he hung back in the center circle and just waited, I thought he was tired and resting - but the ball came rolling back at him. He took three steps forward and just kicked as hard as I've ever seem him kick. The ball went up over everyone's heads and came down neatly behind the keeper. He had just scored from nearly midfield. He is 6. He does his little celebration and yells, "I made the same shot you did last night dad!" The little turkey hadn't been making bad passes, he'd been zeroing in that long shot. With that done he walked over to the sideline and said "sorry, I couldn't do that with my left foot." I wasn't sure whether to high five him or strangle him. Nope, no competition in my family.

good game good fun

[ZenGum]

Aren't you glad he didn't try to copy your deliberate raised boot offense from the week before?
And then shouted "Hey, Dad, I spiked him! Just liked you got that other guy!"

[lookout123]

The game this week was a hard fought affair. I had all my kids back and so did the other team so no excuses about missing players or anything else. The game had a real ebb and flow to it with my kids getting out in front early. Lil Lookout took exactly :23 seconds to put the first one in the net. The kids are really getting comfortable rotating through the positions now so whoever my two forwards are move out to the right and left of the net and let the midfield (usually lil lookout and company) move up the middle and either knock the ball in or pass to the sides for the tap. They're really doing a good job of passing in front of the net.

The other team has two kids that recently moved over here from a crosstown club. They're twin 7 year old boys who just play hard. Usually clean, but always hard. I've never seen 7 year olds who can so discretely tug on shirts and shove other players off the ball. Not skills I want to encourage, but those players will do well as they get older. Good passing, great shots. Those two did a great job of running my kids ragged.

The game was a real shootout with goals being scored every time you turned around. My kids were up 9-7 with just about 10 minutes left but the other team was really getting the best of us in terms of possession and my defense was getting flustered. So I moved my strongest kid into the goal, my strongest defender as the only other player on our side of the field. Lil Lookout was set to roam just on their side of the centerline and the other 4 players were told to just attack the goal constantly and under no circumstances were they to drop back on defense.

From that point on the other team just didn't know what to do. The first shot their keeper blocked he punted the ball downfield as his team moved to attack. I had, effectively, four forwards who just stayed near his box. My one defender beat the other team to the ball and waited until they got close to him before passing the ball right over them to lil lookout who collected it, dribbled up, drew the keeper out and passed the ball to one of our forwards for the tap in.

After the second time scoring in that fashion the other team quit attacking entirely and my kids just passed it around in front of their goal taking shots when they could.

The twins' dad had taken over coaching duties for the week as the normal coach was out of town. He was livid. I didn't even know how to respond when he said it wasn't fair to play like that. Seriously? All I did was tell my kids to attack and shift them away from our own goal. how is that not fair? It was a gamble in that they could have very well overrun lil lookout and my one defender to score at will. The gamble worked, that's all.

Anyway, the only reason this story was worth telling is the sight waiting for me when i turned away from the furious father. While he was yelling and I had been helping my keeper out of his gear the kids had already gathered together, done our usual tradition of cheering the other team's name, and were shaking hands. The dad may not get it, but the twins picked up great sportsmanship somewhere, they shook every players' hand and went out of their way to shake mine and congratulate us. I stood there listening as both teams mixed together and congratulated each other, not just on the win, but on specific plays or highlights. Gave me that warm fuzzy feeling that yes, the kids are learning the important part of the game.

[classicman]

Good for you dude - great attitude - the kids are feeding off it and learning a lot more thqan just futball, they are learning life lessons! You should be very of not only the fine young players on your team, but also yourself.

[lookout123]

Wow, I haven't updated here in awhile and now the session is over.

Two weeks ago they lost by 2 points and were pretty dejected. The parents were furious and it sparked a little bit of a storm at the club. I stayed cool and used it as a learning lesson to the best of my abilities. The team we were playing was "missing a couple kids" so the coach asked me 5 minutes before the game if I would make him forfeit or if I would let him borrow kids from the previous game to fill out his roster. I, of course, told him to get the kids together and let's play.

He didn't grab kids from the game before us. He grabbed 4 kids from the game that had finished outside. The 4 kids he used were all really good club players, including their keeper. Oh, and he did have enough players since he had 5 on the bench by 3 minutes into the game. Oh well, that isn't what made the parents mad. They were furious because 2of the players (twins) he had borrowed are well known and really really dirty. They are coached that way by their parents. The dad is a complete knucklehead who stands on the sidelines before the game screaming at them to "get pissed, kick ass, and take 'em out if they get in your way!" Freaking moron.

Anyway, the game was really tight and my kids stayed with them the whole game. The twins were taking my kids out left and right though. Unfortunately some genius scheduled 2 really young kids as the refs for the game. They were supposed to have a seasoned ref to train them, but somehow that didn't happen. There were some really nasty fouls out there but the ref's were afraid to blow their whistles. The parents really started howling when one of their players knocked the ball out of my keeper's hands with his own hand and then kicked it in. A foul for a number of reasons, but the ref let the point stand. Shortly after that Lil Lookout shot it and hit the keeper right in the nose with blood splattering. LL had the ball back and was about to tap it in, but chose to stop and take a knee since the ref's hadn't blown the whistle. Good sportsmanship. Unfortunately the ref gave the ball to the keeper after the restart instead of returning possession to LL. My kids were pretty frustrated. Lil Lookout usually scores his points and then drops back and works for assists, but the other kids couldn't get it past the keeper so they would feed the ball to Lil Lookout whenever they'd get it. He made some great shots but I didn't realize til after the game that he had again scored all but one of our eight points. He was getting bruised and beaten and finally ran out of gas with about two minutes left. Then it happened.

I guess I should mention that LL is extremely girl crazy and insanely protective of all girls. And he has a temper that I'm doing my best to harness. One girl on our team, L , has a huge crush on lil lookout. He has a huge crush on another girl K. Well, one of the twins took out both girls with really nasty off-the-ball fouls in a matter of 10 seconds. Both girls are down on the ground and the ref doesn't blow the whistle. There are only about 20 seconds left in the game and Lil Lookout, who is exhausted, sprints across the field at the twin who has the ball and I just knew it was trouble. Lil Lookout is only 3'9" and 41 lbs (with no sense of self preservation)and the twin has a good 20 lbs on him, but that didn't seem to matter as LL ran up and dropped his shoulder and slammed the twin into the wall pinning him. At the same time he threw his elbow into the kids stomach hard enough that I heard the "Ooooof!" from across the field. As the kid hit the ground LL spun around with the ball that he had just won and kicked it straight at the kid's head and screamed loud enough for all to hear, "YOU DON'T HIT GIRLS!" With that done he turned around to walk off the field.

I was really expecting some negative repurcussions but all the parents in the stands started clapping and whistling. Hmm. Not behavior I want encouraged. Lil Lookout was embarrassed and ashamed and ran off to cry. I pulled him back out and he apologized to the downed twin.

The buzzer goes off, we lose. The kids did our normal post game cheer and handshake.

Not a great week but definitely some important lessons in perseverence. And yes, I dealt with Lil Lookout's behavior at home.

[lookout123]

Saturday was our last game as a team. We practiced really hard on Wednesday then had our pizza party. The kids were nervous going into the last game because the team we were playing had the 4 "tough" players we had played the week before. We worked on playing smarter and what to do when the twins started fouling them.

DE and D are my two most solid defenders. What they lack in technique they make up in heart. C is a natural defensive midfielder. I worked with them on wednesday and reminded them on saturday about a couple ways to take care of the twins.

I started with my strongest defensive line up with those three back and Lil Lookout in the goal. DE and D did exactly what I taught them. The big move that the twins have is to lean hard on the defenders and then hit them with their elbow as they try to get the ball. Throughout the whole game DE and D would let the twins lean up against them but would just step aside as the twin swung their elbows, causing them to fall. Neither of the twins scored in the whole game. I showed them how the twins would bump the ball too far in front of them and then run up on it. During the game my kids would let the twins bump the ball out in front but instead of trying to steal the ball and dribble away, my kids would just put their foot behind the ball and the twins would trip over the ball due to their own poor technique.

All but one of my kids scored in the game. The one who didn't was my one defender D who I couldn't get to play any other position all session. He asked to play midfield. That was a huge step. For me that was as good as scoring a goal. Lil Lookout stopped a shot from the other team while in the goal and instead of kicking it out like normal, he dropped it at his own feet and dribbled the full length of the field and tapped it in with a backheel. He scored another with an impressive left foot strike. My girl who doesn't really do much managed to head a ball in for a goal. The ref's actually called fouls! That always works in my team's favor because I spend a lot of time coaching clean play. We scored 3 points off free kicks. Everyone was involved and having a blast.

Because of the treatment my kids had received from this same basic set of kids the week before I didn't put the leash on them and they just kept scoring. The final score was 23-1 and I don't feel bad at all. My kids gave their cheer and shook hands after the game. They were all so pumped at beating the bullies, I couldn't get them to sit still in the locker room, so we picked up pizzas and took them to the park for pizza and trophies.

After a bizarre start to the season we ended up with a record of 7-2-1. 1 of the players has to move up to the next age bracket and 2 are taking a session off so we won't have the same group together anymore. Player evaluations are tonight and then it all starts over again next week. Hopefully we have as much fun next time around.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Good job, coach.