Kid's sports - parent's perspective needed

[lookout123]

OK, as many of you know I coach kid's soccer. Currently I handle a rec league Under 8 team. I took a season off so I could focus on business so I had to form a new team from scratch this time around. Usually when a new team forms the results are pretty terrible because I don't recruit or go looking for special talents, I just grab the 8-11 kids + my own that don't belong to a team yet and go from there. It is a learning and building process. This time it is a bit different though.

I showed up to the first practice to find that I had 14 kids. Apparently several parents had requested me as the coach even though I'd never had their kids before. I evaluated them and came to the conclusion on a scale of 1-5 (5 being very skilled) I had a whole squad of 3's with maybe two 4's - one being my son. (he's more obsessive than i am. soccer is what he does by his choice, not mine) Usually there are a couple of 1's and 2's, but not this time. We had our first game a week ago and we tore the team up. It was 12-0 at the end. I felt bad, they felt bad. Normally if I'm really beating a team badly I'll put my less aggressive players up front and put a leash on my real shooters. It just didn't work. 8 different players scored. I had a meeting with my kids' parents. I asked if there were any parents willing to move their kids to the other team to even things out and they would get more playing time. 3 of the top 5 skilled players moved over. 2 moved up an age bracket.

I felt pretty good going into this saturday's game. I had nine players total (7 on the field at a time). We were playing a team that on paper had us severely outclassed, but I figured my kid's would have fun, get lots of touches on the ball and it would give us something to learn about for the next practice. I asked the referee to quit changing the score board 15 minutes into the first period. The score sheet at the end said we beat them 16-3. This is not cool.

I honestly don't know what to do. It's not as simple as just moving weaker players forward. I've got two girls that spend more time waving at their moms than playing who scored. I left them as forwards. These kids just gelled really quickly. They spread out, they find space, they pass, they take the follow up shots. There is not one player on the team that was really unstoppable (mine has the potential but I kept him in the goal for the whole second period) - every kid played unselfishly and it showed on the scoreboard.

All that to say this - what do I do? Dismantling the team is not an option. On paper we aren't nearly as strong as the other 7 teams in the league to begin with - and I only have 9 kids left anyway. But I don't want to create hard feelings with parents' of other teams because they think we're stacking the team and running up the score. So what do I do? I refuse to tell my kids to give anything less than their best effort. That isn't good for the kids and only breeds resentment.

As I type I'm contemplating spending my afternoon calling the parents from saturday's other team to apologize and explain that running up the score was not my intent. I want these people to enjoy the game and want to keep playing. It is embarrassing.

As a parent what would you want to see happen?