You spend a lot of time together, you and your kid, when you coach. You're at every practice and game, moving the team ahead. You're involved right in the middle of their life. Suddenly it's not their teacher at school or music teacher or some other dad who is spending those moments with your daughter, it's you. You in the middle, you shaping them, you helping their friends, you being there.
I was always a but jealous of dads who coach their kids teams. It takes a lot of time. And usually I don't have enough time. So I never did it before, while other dads coached my daughter.
This time I signed up to assist the coach. When there was no head coach I was asked to be it. What a task; what a treat.
Yet there were 14 other girls, and 14 other families, who played. I wasn't going to just focus on my all star. There was a whole team, and I had a role for each of them.
Honestly, I didn't make it about soccer. We had practices and games, and I did my best to help them learn soccer. But when we talk about kids and sports, adults always preach that it's about other things. About having fun. About playing together and making friends. About character. About developing people.
We worked hard to do our best and win. We did drills in practice. And we won some games - about half of them. I was warned that the girls wouldn't care much about the score, which was completely wrong. They celebrated each goal, and were excited about every time we won. But it was about more than winning.
I broke it down into three parts:
- Have fun.
- Play hard.
- Be a good teammate.
I had now idea how to teach these things. So I reverted to the most basic medium I could think of: Candy. Our team was the Bubblegum Bashers. So after each game I gave out free gum. A piece to everyone, because each girl is valuable. But three special pieces of gum, one each to the girl who had the most fun, worked hard, and was a good teammate.
Really, there was something else I strove for. Something even more basic, which I think is the core thing we all need. I wanted the girls to all feel loved. I wanted them to feel loved by the team, and I wanted them to know that I valued each of them. If we won or lost, if they scored or were scored on, it didn't matter. I was proud of them, I valued them, and there were loved.
The challenge is, how to do you make your girls know they're loved and not get arrested?
In little ways, I guess. The bubblegum prizes. The focus on fun while learning. Enthusiasm when they played. Comfort when something was bad. Constant encouragement. Correcting when needed, but never demeaning. Being their biggest cheerleader. Never complaining to the ref. Telling each they were important, and pointing out what they were good at.
I don't know how well I did. They keep a score in the games, but it seems like the more important something is, they harder it is to quantify.
There were some neat moments though. Like the card one girl gave me at the end. She runs like a deer and scores strong goals, but she appreciated me calling her to encourage her after she tried a turn at net and was scored on five times. The row of girls who gave out hugs after one game. (We played with only 6 girls a whole game, and actually won. The girls were ecstatic and exhausted when it ended. Trinity was the first to get to me, and gave me a big hug. When she let go the next girl was there running with her arms open too. Oh well, hugs all around, I guess.) The parents who shook my hand after and said Thanks. Some really neat moments that signalled that I was at least on the right track.
Mostly, I'm proud of the time I spent with Trinity. She was glad for it all. We did a whole season together. She was so happy when she scored. She was devastated when she let in goals while being goalie, she cried herself to sleep that night. (Goalies are a whole different personality type, I learned.) For two months I was there, in the middle of her life. That was the best place I could be.
