Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Deep in the Hell of Youth Soccer

This fall season has been 1 clusterfuck after another. We've been pushed around from 1 practice place to another a few times. I told the dude we were going to practice 1 place, he said fine & then immediately sent out an e-mail to parents saying somewhere else. They were obviously confused as Hell so I've had to sort that out multiple times. Certainly, it wasn't their fault, but I'm then caught in the middle of it all looking like a total douche nozzle. Of course, it doesn't help that the roster changes every fucking week. We started w/ practices 2 weeks ago, had a few changes for the 2nd week & then had 3 new kids this week. This seems to be a case of the parents registering their kids after the deadline, but @ this point, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of it just being a clerical mistake on the part of the Township Rec Dept. I suppose this wouldn't be as big of a deal if wee didn't keep getting new kids who had never played before. Each practice takes us back to the beginning. I'm glad they want to play, & I'm happy to help, but the other kids stand there w/ looks on their faces as if to say, "WTF? We just did all this shit last week." (That's a literal translation of their facial expressions, not a word for word transcription of their actual comments.)

In the end today, after an hour of frustration & disorganization, the parents were really understanding so @ least there was that. They could have been really angry. To top it off, I started kicking the balls as far as I could to take out a little aggression after most had left when 1 of the parents, laughing, asked if it'd been a rough practice @ which point her kid came running up telling her what a great practice it had been. It's nice to know the kids didn't pick up on my frustration; maybe they weren't upset that we'd already done that stuff twice after all.

On the other hand, we got home & Stephanie had made awesome chili. After which, while I was writing this, Isaiah was screwing w/ the computer so I tried to distract him by asking where Mace Windu was. He preceded to walk across the room & grab the Clone Wars Action Figure. The dude is 14 months old & know ace Windu? Sweet! Maybe net year we'll start him on SWTCG. I bet a gaming league would be a lot easier than youth fucking soccer.

5 comments:

Happy Housewife said...

Soooo I'm wondering something.
Why don't you get out of "rec ball" and get Aiden into a U10 travel team? I'm sure you could still coach. I bet you know all this and have thought about it, I'm just wondering what your opinion is.
It's a LOT more serious and organized. Conor is done with Rec basketball and is going to play on a U14 travel team.
Just curious.

Stephanie said...

Holly- because it's more serious, and thus more competetive.
Andre- dude... I love you.

Andre said...

He wouldn't dig that at all. Maybe in a few years.

Zoe the Wonder Dog said...

As a parent who does not play soccer, I'm sooooo appreciative of those who have skills making this commitment. E is like your kids and doesn't need the heavy competition or travel. She just wants to play and see her buddies from around the city on Saturday morning. I love it and I love people like you who coach it. (ok... and I love that we seem to have gotten a really good coach this season after a few seasons of a someone who was new to the game. Yay! Go Fire!). Our game is early on Sat - 9:00am. Hopefully we'll see you out there.

Andre said...

Ours is at 10:45 this week but I imagine we'll be early so we might run into you. I want to hear all about England.