Soccer practice

Wednesday afternoons in the spring and fall the past few years have included a ritualistic pastime that marks the seasons as vibrantly as the changing colors:  soccer practice.  Having coached my son's team for one season and then my daughter's team for the past 3.5 years, I have come to dread and then pleasantly enjoy the actual practice midweek event.

It goes like this:  at about 4:05 on Wednesdays everyone who has a question or complaint calls me at work, with need for Urgent Answers as the Unending March of Construction requires constant input from architects who do nothing all day until 4PM the day of soccer practice, at which point every question must be answered lest we be called out via the dreaded cc on the email that alerts everyone on a mailing list just how lame we are and calls into question why we have to be a part of the process anyway.

I'm not TOO bitter.

Anyway, mix in the burden of getting myself and my daughter to the soccer field to meet a buzzing hive of 11 year olds who need to run and run and run.  Negotiating the traffic as we make our way to one of the many greenspaces in Silver Spring just adds to the joy, as does the insecurity of knowing that I'm not really coaching these kids, just babysitting them for an hour while they blow off some steam.  I don't ever do drills as real coaches do, since a) I'm a volunteer; b) I just can't take this too seriously; and c) when I tried doing drills I realized that it's a perfect setup for disappointment as it is akin to herding cats.  When I finally get everyone's attention we split into teams and just play, no goalies and just run, pass, and kick.  Maybe I'll stop play to explain why they should spread the field or not to clump up around the ball or look for the open spaces, but usually it's 45 minutes of running.  And if another adult is willing or there's a big brother available, we play too.

Suddenly I'm enjoying myself.  I hate distance running, but love running for the purpose of chasing a soccer ball, or stealing a base, or running a post pattern, or hopping barriers and running up steep grades in a 'cross race, or anything in which the action of running is complimentary to the activity.  An hour flies by, we're having a great time, the weather is great (spring and fall around here can't be beat) and there are moments where the natural instincts that are so integral to the Beautiful Game reveal themselves in little developments of passing and shooting by kids who are just having fun.  It's no longer childcare.  It's soccer.

Three days later, on Saturdays, we play a real game against another team in different colored t-shirts.  Now they compete, and it all comes together.  Fun practice=fun games.  Win some, lose some, no worries.

Soccer practice is kind of like doing intervals.  I dread them.  I do them.  I actually enjoy them, and we start all over again.