The last game...

Madison is playing soccer this year. We started in the fall, and she had the most wonderful coach in the world! For those who didn't guess, yep it was me. I had the opportunity of working with a bunch of 5 year old little girls trying to teach them soccer in a mere 30 minutes per week. When we signed Madison up, I decided that I wanted to make sure that she had a coach who was really good with the girls, who wouldn't just teach them to have fun and not teach them soccer basics.

So with some hesitancy I checked the box that says I am willing to coach. Well Saturday was our last game of the season. It was sad because I had worked with some girls throughout the year and finally at the end of the season, my girls got it. My little girl scored like 6 goals during the game and we blasted our way to a victory...of course the season is now over and I wish we had a few more games so I could really start teaching them how to play the game.

It was a funny experience. I have always wanted to coach my kids when and if they were ever interested in sports, for some reason I thought I would be good at it. I was never really very good as soccer, baseball or soccer, but I always felt like I could coach it well. I was okay at basketball, but for some reason I don't think I would do a good job coaching it. Anyway...It was funny because I found myself getting very frustrated, not because we were losing, or because they girls didn't have the skills. I was frustrated because I didn't feel like I was doing a good job. I had girls begging to take a break...they didn't want to play! I will admit that weather probably had an impact. I think it was either freezing cold or really hot...there was never a sunny cool day during any of our games, but I had always felt that it's the coaches job to motivate their players to play. I found that motivation is different for each person.

Madison was easy to motivate, she wanted to win, and that was motivation enough for her to
play.
For Ashley it was very important to her to look good for her family (after she would kick the ball she would look over at her mom and family with the biggest grin on her face).
For Zehmiah, it was just about being on the field. It didn't matter what she did, she just wanted to be out there.
Olivia needed to be the best. She was probably the most frustrating girl on my team. She had bursts of energy in which she dominated everyone on the field. But those bursts were few and far between. When she wasn't successful immediatley, she would quit.
Yelitza was just happy to be there. She liked being on the field, but was a little behind. (she didn't start on our team until spring soccer.

In all I wasn't sure if I enjoyed being soccer coach. I actually had started to prepare Madison for the day when I wasn't the coach (like next year). But when registration came up I found myself signing up to be the coach again.

I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment and frustration!