Soccer Game #1 (Summer)

Game #1 came less than 48 hours after Practice #1! If I'd jumped to coach sooner, we might have had a practice the previous week, but, as it was, we were jump starting the season.

The other team was short a ton of players, though. It was something like 11 to 4. I wanted to play, so I started grabbing kids and assigning them to the other team. First up was Shane. I figured if anyone was going to complain, I'd point at him and say, "That's my kid and I threw him on the other team. Get over there!"

The other coach was new, too, so I took charge and started organizing. I kept shouting stuff like, "This is Rec League! We're here to play soccer and have fun. Let's go boys!"

Shane hopped into goal for Gold and Sam hopped into goal for us.

First impressions: We have a few kids on the team who could be pretty good! The best players on the field were from our side!

More kids showed up and I shuffled around who was playing for Gold round 2. "You! You're really good and I want an exciting game. You! You're standing closest to their coach. You! You made eye contact first when I started looking around!" 

I thought it went well! Kids laughed and no one complained. Bradley said something about nonsensical reasons being impossible to argue against (good vocabulary word, Kid!).

Sam was thrilled to get out of goal and let Shane take over.

Only Shane developed some sort of injury. He said his leg hurt. I stood by the goal and told him to just hang in there and sit down. That way everyone got to play! If he blocked anything, it'd be a miracle and he'd be hero. I even gave him my hat to keep the sun and his hair out of his eyes.

Guess what? We got through. My boys scored the most points on the field (for and against us!). Shane's leg healed after the game and I got him interested in Marvel Champions again (Hooray!).

All in all, it was a great day.