I mentioned last week that the kid was invited to try out for her school’s traveling soccer team. In case you missed it, my daughter was very excited about this invitation, and wanted to start running soccer drills as to be prepared. I was equally excited to help out, and we ran soccer drills four days in a row, about an hour a day, to get her ready for the Saturday tryout.
The kid was all psyched up, and ready to go. I was her kit man on this Saturday, as I had her cleats, towel, change of clothes, and water. The soccer field was attached to a school on the East side of Harlem, and on the walk over, the kid was telling me all the strategies she would deploy to make a good impression on the coaches. No matter what happened, she told me, she was going to do her best.
When we made it to the school, there were about 28 to 30 girls that were there for the tryout. The coaches called out the names, the girls went in the gate to the field, and we the parents were left on the outside of the fence to watch.
The coaches broke the girls up into teams of four, and had them play short ten-minute games. What I found odd was that, none of the coaches were paying very close attention to the girls. And when I say “paying attention” I mean they didn’t seem to be evaluating anyone’s skills. None of the coaches had clipboards, or anything to take notes. They just, kind’a, watched the kids, encouraged them to play and have fun, and every ten minutes, told the kids to take a water break. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting out of the coaches, but being that I am not a soccer coach, I reminded myself I should trust the people who are the coaches; I’m sure they know what they’re doing.
Anyway, from my observation, the kids all just ran after the ball, sort’a clumped around it, and kicked wildly. There wasn’t a whole lot of “team” playing, so much as it was just kicking the ball at the goal, no matter who or what was in the way. Passing was rather non-existent.
That’s not to say that there were two very talented girls out there. Like, heads and shoulders above the skill of the other kids. These two girls could dribble, and spin, and fake out, and kick – like really smash the ball. Like, we all knew they were making the team.
As for the other girls, including my kid, they all had a blast out there. Just running, and kicking, and laughing, and screaming. They were having fun, and as the tryout wore on, maybe that was what the coaches were looking for – who is excited to be out there and playing.
But I did keep some stats on my kid. She took five shots on goal, scored one goal, and -are you ready for this – passed the ball to an open player and got an assist. I was impressed. As far as I could tell, it was the only assist of the afternoon.
