soccer sunday

So, there I was, on the sideline of the girls U-10 championship game on Sunday playing the role of soccer dad. Man, I couldn’t have been happier watching my baby girl’s team play. The games were 1000x more gripping, to me anyway, than watching any pro team in any pro sport.

I made a pact with myself early on that I would never, ever, ever critique her play unless she asked me to. That’s up to her coach, and she’s fortunate to have a great leader filling that role for her this year. She’s the newest member of the team, and with that comes some confusion about where to be, and when to use her energy. It would be easy to stand up and shout instructions, but, I won’t. My Mom handled it right by providing encouragement and letting the coaches do the coaching – and not letting me quit when I wanted to. If my head got big she ignored it, and when I was feeling overmatched she let me work through it. There’s a lot more to playing a team sport at this age than winning games.

So, they won the tourney. The final game could have gone either way and even the girls knew it. Lyza played in the shadow of better teammates, and stepped out occasionally to make good plays from time to time. Rightfully, she was on the bench more than the better players. Riding pine can do more for you than being the star.

Now, her days of equal playing time, ribbons just for finishing, and not keeping score are long gone. So goes the innocence, too.