Positive Reinforcement?

I think our first home game was my favorite of all the games that I had the privelege of observing. We played a team comprised of first and second graders. Our team was comprised of kindergarteners and first graders. I'm not sure how familiar you are with age differences in children, but it's not so much like it is when one is trying to justify dating someone several years older or younger than oneself. For example, when I was 25, there was nothing wrong with dating a 30 year old, right? Of course not - Coach Daddy is five years older than I am.

That said, there is a world of difference between a 5 year old and a 7 year old. There is a world of concepts that are easily grasped by a 7 year old that would leave a 5 year old in the dark.

One such concept is competition.

We went to the first home game elated by our certain home field advantage and when our little team left that day it was still elated. The elation came not from winning the game but from some kind of misguided rule in childrens' sports whereby even if the team loses in an abyssmal fashion, the children still receive snacks on par with a victory celebration. I must admit here, that I am against this practice - after this game, it was clear that not only were cupcakes inappropriate, but that they most certainly conveyed the wrong message to this team.

Highlights from this game include, but are not limited to:
~one child's crying in the center circle for a full six minutes due to the fact that she was not picked to be goalie (once we were allowed a substitution, she was able to come off the field)
~our team's scoring another two goals for the opposition
~Jenna's leaving the field in the middle of the game to go to the bathroom (this was a stellar moment for Coach Daddy)
~Jenna and her best friend holding hands for much of the second half of the game
~one child's attempt to beat the holy hell out of an opposing team member for laughing at the little girl crying in the center circle (it was my hope for the remainder of that doomed season that we could channel that rage into lust for the ball; alas, it was not meant to be)

I believe my mother (who has no understanding of the sport of soccer - much like our team) said it best when she asked me about the field:

Mom: What is the deal with that other goal at the end of the field? Don't we use that one?
Me: That's our goal, and no...we don't use it.

To be more apt, we never moved across the midfield line that day. The final score was 21-0 (again, though, using our math the score was actually 19-0 as we did score two of their goals for them) and those numbers do not even come close to appropriately describing the chasm between the two skill sets at play. It was like watching my grandmother try to outrebound Wilt Chamberlain - in a word, futile.

Our girls were picking flowers and playing princess. The opposing team was playing the sport as best they could while dodging the obstacles put in place by our team. To the credit of the other team, they successfully dodged our midfield trap comprised of Jenna and her best friend making daisy chains and hugging (a lofty defensive strategy that would prove an integral facet contributing to Coach Daddy's early onset of cirrohsis), our goalie's flat disregard for staying anywhere near the goal and the blinding distraction caused by constant head shaking of our girls' fathers. So, all in all, we must give the other team credit where credit is due.

And to our team? Well, I like to think that the cupcakes were earned based on the style and potential resale value of some pretty good looking daisy chains, because I refuse to believe that a soccer team allowing 21 (well, 19) points by the opposition is in need of cupcakes.

A friend once called me a "soccer mom." As you can see, I wholeheartedly beg to differ. To date, I have seen no soccer. To date, I have seen tears and daisy chains. And I must say, when Coach Daddy cries like that, it is heartbreaking.