Ten Goals in a Half? Seems Like a Lot!

Two of my daughters played in a soccer tournament this weekend, my middle, Macy and my youngest, Darby.  Macy is a very accomplished soccer player and her team is more than competitive.  Per usual, Macy left the tournament with a medal, albeit silver, much to her chagrin.

But this post isn’t about made goals and wins, not off any of my kid’s cleats, anyway. 

To the uninitiated, a team is a team is a team.  Any given day, any team can win.  In a perfect world, sure, but anyone who endured 2020 knows the world isn’t perfect.  Because of the imbalance, every league splits its players into different tiers based on ability.  For example, my middle daughter plays on the “gold” team which is tier two only behind the “select” team.  Below Macy is the “white” team and below that is “blue” where Darby plays. 

See, Darby, while enthusiastic, hasn’t hit any brand of growth spurt yet and tends to be slower and less physical than most of the other kids.  She tends to be behind the play as it migrates down the field.  It doesn’t matter all that much.  She’s having fun and she will catch up. 

The problems, for the point of this story, are that A) Darby has started playing goalie and B) the first team they played in the tournament was a “premier” level team.  A premier team is the equivalent of the highest-level team in the tournament. 

It was a recipe for disaster. 

Anyone waiting for the “David versus Goliath” ending might as well stop reading now. 

Darby was in goal for the second half of the game.  The team was already down 3-0 when she took the net.  They were behind big and it got much, much worse. 

Darby would allow ten goals in the second half.  She was outmanned, as was her team.  There was a sense, as the half went on, that the girls had to endure the drubbing they were taking but their willingness to fight back waned.  The less the girls fought, the worse it got for Darby in the net.  It was no one’s fault.  They ran into a buzz saw and there wasn’t a lot they could do about it.

The worst part about it was the other team.  The most politically correct way to describe these 11-year-olds would be “snarky little shits”.  Literally the kindest way I can find to describe them. 

The girls made jabs at Darby.  As the goals mounted, the jabs got worse.  The team would rip a goal past Darby and mock her with a sarcastic “nice try goalie” then “it’s like you’re playing for our team”.  It was audible to the parents.  It concluded with a penalty shot that went off Darby’s fingertips and left her in tears.

The game ended 13-0. After the game, Darby was a hybrid of angry and embarrassed and sad.  She asked if she could skip the rest of the tournament, and truth be told, we were tempted to let her.  Deep down, her mother and me knew that was the wrong thing to do and we sent her back into the fray.

It felt like bad parenting.  It was a feeling that would be exacerbated watching Darby putting the goalie jersey back on for the first half of the next game.

“You’ve got to be joking” I thought to myself.  “Yesterday wasn’t bad enough?”.  I was hoping that she would be put in midfield where she could blend in and just get by.  Instead, what happened was remarkable.

She was stopping balls.  Her team was scoring.  At the end of her half, the team was up 3-0.  She didn’t play goal in the second half as it was someone else’s turn.  When the game ended, she was happy. I was relieved.

The lesson here, ladies?  There’s a few.  The first is this: don’t let someone else take your joy.  Those little girls, and their snarky little selves, made you want to quit.  Screw them.  I’m proud of you quieting the noise and playing again. Secondly, be brave.  I took stones to go back on the field.  The fun you had with your teammates over the last few days is directly attributable to the bravery you showed going back on the field, back in the net and back in the line of fire.  I couldn’t be prouder of you.  I’m sorry I doubted you. I’m glad you went back to goalie. 

Finally, it’s about those sardonic little shits on the other team.  Maybe you didn’t get the chance to shut them up (nor did anyone else as they outscored their opponents 33-0 in the tourney).  Every team, and I mean every single one, gets their comeuppance at some point.  Any team that behaves the way they did will not handle losing well.

Your team hugged and consoled each other.  You had a water balloon fight.  You ate snacks and played with your teammates.  Winning as a team is easy, losing as a team can be harder.  There was no blame between one another.  The lesson is to be a gracious winner and an optimistic loser.  This weekend your team was both.  You won a couple; you lost a couple and you had fun.  Seems about right. 

 

Just Because There's a Knock, Doesn't Mean You Have to Answer

 I heard a quote a few weeks ago.  Per usual, I feel like there is a need for transparency here.  I wrote this post once a few weeks ago but didn’t love it and didn’t post it.  This is a second run at it, so instead of “I heard a quote today”, it’s “I heard a quote a few weeks ago”.

“You can't wait until life isn't hard anymore for you to decide to be happy”

It struck a chord a little harder than I’d like to admit. 

The purpose of these blog posts is to give my girls a little bit of guidance as they get older.  I suppose that I need to peel back the proverbial curtain of myself every once and a while. 

The last year has been rough.  Maybe it’s the lockdown.  Maybe it’s the four-foot commute from my bed to my desk.  Maybe it’s the weight I’ve put on or the reclusive lifestyle I found a way to pull off despite living in a house with five people.  Regardless of what it is, I’ve been down, like Chrystal Pepsi down.

I’ve hidden it as best possible from the girls, but I know there have been times when the mask slipped.  Maybe I should be more honest with them, but we’ve all dealt with so much over the last year.  In reality, the last year has done a lot to all of us but the biggest thing it’s done to me is to make me feel helpless, maybe a little weak.

“You can't wait until life isn't hard anymore for you to decide to be happy”

The person who said this quote is struggling with cancer and was offered a 2% chance of survival.  She doesn’t look at the ninety-eight percent that stands in her way, she embraces the strength of that 2%. 

I guess life is all about that 2%.

I had dinner with my stepbrother over the weekend.  He has an unrelentingly optimistic view of me, one that sometimes feels both unearned and unattainable.  While unearned, being with him recharges my batteries.  I see a lot of younger me in him and I like being able to offer pathways through the potholes that I so frequently stepped in.  One of the things we discussed over dinner was gratitude. 

Perhaps when life seems content to leave a bag of poo on your porch maybe it’s fair to just not answer the doorbell.  Maybe it’s better to look at the Honor Roll Avery made, or the soccer teams the girls all made. Maybe peek at the tough half marathon Adrienne just ran and the growth she and you girls have done over the last year. 

The lesson here, girls?  I suppose it’s as much for me as it is you.  Happiness, in large part, is a decision.  It is often easier to answer the doorbell and its fecal package.  It’s a doorbell, its what’s expected of you.  It’s easy to spiral and think of the world as something that is conspiring against you.  It’s simple to let it compound and blind you to the good things. 

I know it’s easy. 

I’ve been doing it effortlessly for quite a little while. 

“You can't wait until life isn't hard anymore for you to decide to be happy”

Life will always be hard.  There will always be things that don’t go your way.  There will always be loss and even grief.  Life, like it or not, is short.  Something I forget, more often than I’d like to admit, it that life is too short to get caught up in the smelly bag on the porch. 

 

Avery's Test of Mettle...or Medal

This is the last soccer post I will have for a little while.  The season is over as is tournament weekend.  In a previous post I mentioned that we were one weekend away from a chance at an undefeated year, for all three of the girls.  That weekend came and went and the girls remained undefeated.  It was a fun season.  Tournaments can be different. 

Way different.

Tournaments tend to be a place for the best teams to showcase their skills.  It is a place where an undefeated local team can get their doors kicked in on a bigger stage.  A place where dreams of grandeur meet the nightmare of reality.

My wife and I are well versed in this.  In years past, Macy, my middle daughter played for a team that was the deliverer of reality to unsuspecting teams.  My eldest, Avery, has always been the recipient. 

Macy has a shelf full of trophies and medals from tournaments.  These are not participation awards.  They are bonafide articles of battles won.

Avery has always looked longingly at that shelf. 

She had a great season and declared in the days leading up to the tournament “I’m coming home with a medal”. 

Poor sweet Avery.  Her teams, in the half decade she’s been going to tournaments, has won just one single game.  Just one.  I loved her attitude, but the odds were stacked in the nightmare’s favor.

My wife was out of town running a trail race in Moab (a story for another post) so I knew it was going to be me to wipe the weekends tears.  The first game was against a team that they had beat during the season. We had a feeling that they would win their first game, but it would get dodgy after that. 

We were right.  On the first day of the tourney, they won their first game, 3-0 and Avery played well and had a goal.  The second game that day was tougher.  It took a late goal to earn a tie.  The girls looked a little out of their depth.  They may have been a little lucky. 

Avery was a bag of nerves that night.  She had hurt her foot and was concerned about her ability to play at the level she wanted to. We stayed in a hotel with the team and being surrounded by her friends on the team was a pressure relief valve for her but her “taking a medal home no matter what” proclamation had lost its luster a bit. There was some positive math for the team.  If they won their next game they would make the championship game, and more importantly, if they make the championship game they get a medal, it may be silver, but it’s a medal none the less. 

Avery was nervous when she woke up.  We went down to breakfast and Avery sat quietly eating a bit distracted.  We talked but she was absent.  She got dressed and we made our way to the field. 

I saw something I don’t see in Avery very often.

I watched her settle herself.  Her face went from “all nerves” to “business”.  The game wasn’t five minutes old when Avery scored.  I may be a little biased, or completely so, but I believe that the early goal set the tone for the game.  The team won 7-0.  The girls played great.    They were in the championship.  Avery would get her medal. 

That wasn’t enough for Avery.  In the championship, Avery would score the team’s first goal again.  They would go on to win the trophy. 

Her smile was ear to ear, as was the rest of the team’s.  There was no clear MVP.  Everyone had played hard.  Everyone contributed.  They had exceeded their own expectations.  It was great.

The lesson here, ladies?  First of all, set your own boundaries.  If I were honest, I didn’t think you guys would bring home a medal.  Thank goodness you didn’t think the way I did.  Secondly, and most importantly, its about rising to the moment.  There are moments in your life that you either sink or you swim.  Moments that you will remember for the rest of your life, with joy when your succeed or with regret if you crumble a bit.  It makes me proud that you made your declaration and then backed it up.  I’m proud of you, regardless.  In that I am totally biased, but last weekend, you put an exclamation point on it.  You played well, you were unselfish and you were a leader.  I would have been proud if you didn’t win a game last weekend.

But you did win a game last weekend.  A bunch of ‘em.  So, congratulations, sweetheart.  You’ve got your medal.  I hope the achievement outshines that little piece of metal.  Probably won’t bet here’s hoping!