Soccer and Pictures

Ok face it - until soccer season is done here at the churches youth league you will be hearing about soccer after every Saturday. Why? Because I love soccer! I am so happy to be able to help out with soccer and more importantly that Jesse encourages me in it. I talked to Jesse's Grandma about it because I was feeling a little discourage. Not with soccer but the other coaches. When I volunteered to coach we had a meeting that same day with all the coaches. The person in charged is actually the PE teacher for the school or the Coach as most people call him. Well, I will just refer to him as Head Coach. Anyway he mentioned that we could have a team verse, prayer time with the team, and practically whatever we wanted to do. This is an outreach to the church kids and some other kids that find out about it.
So I wrote up a Bible Verse. Thanks to Mom I have watched her write up songs and Bible Verses all the time I was growing up so I knew how to do it so it would look good. Next I wrote up a little cheer "We are the Hawks" not much but these are 4-5 year olds. I repeat the verse and the cheer every game before and after. I have looked at the other coaches and it seems that all they care about is playing, playing, and winning. Jesse's Grandma really helped me when she told me "You keep doing what you are doing. Let the other coaches do what they want but you take good care of you team."
So I decided that I would do just that. Oh, and what an excitement to me when after our game we said our verse and then Benjamin took the cheer out and said "I want to hold it" I didn't even have to say we were going to say it he took over and did it. I was actually thinking of not saying it. But we shouted out our cheer and everyone was very happy. I love these little kids and I am always telling them how good they are.
Another thing that happen, was that Benjamin fell and skinned his knee. Well, I took him to the sidelines and started to wipe off his knee with water. One of the parents helps me in the game so I just let him take over. Benjamin's mother came on over and after a few seconds she said "Coach you go back to game I take care of Benjamin" I was called "Coach". I really wasn't expecting that but it felt great.
Then I had this little girl who didn't want to play. I put her in anyway because her mom told me to make her play. One time when the ball was very close to out goal I told her to keep the ball from going into the goal. You should have seen her. She was hopping back and forth between two cones. One cone was the goal cone the other cone was the sideline cone. But she was very enthusiastic about keeping the ball from passing her. She did need to be over between the two goal cones but before I could move her the other team scored. I did praise her for doing such a good job. After that it seemed like her heart was in the game more.

Ok, I mentioned pictures in the title and I promise you the pictures do go with soccer. We had team pictures this Saturday. Our t-shirts are green ... lime green. I would rather have had a darker color of green but hey it was a free shirt. Umm free yea I suppose I did pay for it by giving up my Saturday mornings BUT I would not trade that time for anything. Oh yes back to the pictures. So Head Coach comes up to me and ask if it would be ok if we could let another team use two of our shirts because two kids from another team but same color shirt forgot theirs. Some parents standing with me said that it would be fine. We went over to stand in line. Two boys surrendered their shirts and the other team was able to get a team picture and the two girls were able to get their individual pictures done. Meanwhile I had one parent talking to me saying that those girls should have to have their pictures done in the shirts they brought because our team had all their team shirts. I mentioned to him that I had called all my team to make sure that everyone would have their team shirt. Then he went on about that the other coach should have .... But he then repented about what he said and told me he was sorry he had such a bad attitude about it. Meanwhile I was thinking along the same lines about the other team and those shirts. But it all turned out well. The boys got their shirts back and we had our individual pictures done. I stood behind the photographer and made silly faces to get the kids to smile/laugh. Then we all got together for a team picture. It was a great experience that I don't want to experience again but will if I coach next year. (Hint hint Jesse) lol.