Soccer registration was this past weekend. It’s hard to believe that soccer season is so close when you look outside at the mountains of snow and the still cold temperatures. This is the first year both girls will be playing and we will have either a practice or game every night of the week except for Saturdays. It’s going to be nuts. My oldest now plays competitively so she plays games twice a week and practices twice a week. For her the season will start mid-April. My little one is thankfully only in the house league which means games only no practices and she will play twice a week starting early May. So from May until the tail end of June it will be soccer, soccer and a bit more soccer.
I will almost certainly be coaching again this year which means I really have to be at every game and practice. I’m hoping that we have enough volunteers this year that I won’t need to coach for both girls teams though. I would love to sit down a few games and just cheer for them rather than try to keep track of who is in what position and when they were last subbed. It can get a little confusing at times.
It’s sad to see that so many kids get registered to play yet there are so few parents willing to step up and volunteer. The most common excuse is that they don’t know anything about soccer, well a few years ago neither did I. Soccer didn't seem to be around when I was a kid it was all baseball and I knew nothing about the sport. I still get confused by what constitutes as offside sometimes but the girls don’t care they just want to play. I do understand people hesitancy to coach it is difficult to get 14 or so girls to pay attention to you and follow direction with out a good deal of patience and the right attitude. There are many other ways in which parents can help out. They can help to organize the district jamboree, be a bench mom, flag duty, help organize the team windup or even just help the coaches to collect all the markers and balls from after a game or practice. For the house league (under 9 age group) a parent or guardian HAS to remain at the field so if your there anyways why not help out?
One of the hardest things to get people to do for some reason is flag duty. All they have to do is walk up and down the sideline and raise a flag when the ball goes out of bounds and indicate which team was the last to touch the ball. Pretty simple but each time I would start walking across the field with the flag everyone would suddenly find a reason to pay attention to everything other than me and even refuse to risk making eye contact. Eventually I stopped waiting for someone to speak up and tossed the flag to the first parent that came into view. I know not necessarily the fairest way to decide but it was effective.
Regardless of if I see their games this year as either a coach or just a parent I look forward to seeing them play and have fun.
Regardless of if I see their games this year as either a coach or just a parent I look forward to seeing them play and have fun.
