The Soccer Star

Adam had his first night of soccer practice tonight. He absolutely loves soccer, even though it's obvious after tonight we have work to do.

He started off strong with a dribbling exercise. Luckily, we had practiced this before at home. Thank you freshman year of college 1/2 credit PE Soccer. However, before he was done with the drill, he had tripped over his own feet and fallen twice.

His coach explained the simple rules of a shark & minnows game -- which I clearly heard from 12 ft. away. The kid that was the shark was to try to kick the soccer ball away from the kids that were the minnows. Adam must have been admiring his own astounding soccer skills because he missed that the goal was for the other kid to steal his soccer ball. Three meltdowns ensued, complete with whiny "H-E-Y, that's M-Y soccer ball!" before he realized there was a pattern and that was the game.

Near the end of practice, the coach decided to let the kids practice their running and have a race against each other without soccer balls. Every other kid on the field heard this instruction and kicked their soccer balls neatly in a row off the field. My kid, decided that he would use this time to make a goal in the net. His sense of elation was cut short when he finally realized that his soccer ball was not with the "in crowd." Even though the coach gave the okay to just leave his soccer ball, Adam could not join the group of racers because he was tangled in the net. After releasing Adam back into the wild, the coach said, "On your mark, get set..." to which Adam yells "GO!" and all the kids take off. The coach called them back to start again. This time Adam wasn't ready for "GO!" because he wasn't the one saying it. After all the kids took off, and he turned around to notice, he went full speed ahead...only to trip over his cleats and eat dirt.

I will say, what my son lacks in skills he makes up for in heart. Despite falling in the dirt numerous times and being last place in every game or skill, he still got up for more. All the way home he talked about the best time he had.