Soccer: Week 1

Soccer is a big part of Erin's life. She's not one to brag so I'll do it for her: she's pretty good. She played at a very high level in high school, playing in international tournaments and even scored a goal in international play. Though I didn't witness the goal personally, by all accounts it was on par with the 1980 Miracle on Ice: the crowd chanted "U!S!A!", Erin was draped in an American flag and there was probably a call from the president.

Anyway, this year Will was old enough and interested enough to play in a youth soccer league, so we signed him up. Because the season started in September, Will was still 3 years old, so he is one of the oldest (and biggest, fastest) kids in the 3-year old league, instead of one of the youngest in the 4- and 5-year old league. This is a significant advantage. All of us were very excited for Will to use his blazing speed and strong kicking legs to destroy every other child in his path. We are also very excited for Erin to be able to live vicariously through her son.

Then we went to Will's first game. The way the league works for these kids is they meet for an hour on Saturdays, practice for the first half of the hour and play a game against another team for the second half. The coaches do a great job of creating a very positive, encouraging environment and for practice they basically play fun games that are loosely associated with soccer (like "hide and seek" where you have to kick the ball as you run to the clearly not well-hidden "hiding" coach). Despite all these efforts and emphasis on fun for everyone, some kids (and I'm talking about one of ours here) are going to be pouty when they're not the winner at everything.

So the first week did not go very well. Will basically cried/pouted the whole time and refused to play any of the practice games despite Erin and I trying everything we could. I think it was a little bit nervousness about not knowing any of the other Blueberries (that's his team name, cute isn't it?) and a lot of just blind refusal to do what mom and dad want him to do. This actually wasn't very unusual: I think every Blueberry had at least one week spent crying on the sidelines for much/all of the practice and game.

We took a few pictures and video, but for the first week they were pretty pathetic so not worth sharing. The exceptions were pics of Hallie. Unlike her bro she was very excited about watching the kids play soccer, and played a bit herself with Erin and I. She even helped try to cheer up pouty Will. Here she's giving him hugs to help cheer him up while Will tries to pout through them.

So at least I got some smiles from one of my kids that kept me cheerful as I went back to work on the dissertation.

Does Will go back to having fun playing soccer and start living up to his soccer pedigree? Check back for an upcoming post on Soccer: Week 2...