Basketball vs. Soccer: Microcosmically

In the winter I play pick-up basketball and indoor soccer in the same spot-- an elementary school gym-- which is conveniently located two blocks from my house; there are only two people who play in both games, myself and a guy named Bruce . . . so we'd be in the middle sliver of the Venn diagram, but the rest of the folks don't occupy the same world; here are the differences between the two games  . . . draw what inferences you like:

1) for soccer, you need to bring a white and a dark shirt-- so that you can wear the same color as your team-- but for basketball, you have to memorize who is on your team-- this is fairly typical and I suppose it is because in soccer you are looking down more and have to make longer passes and might not be able to recognize someone's face from that far away, but my eyes aren't great and I wouldn't mind if the basketball game adopted the soccer policy;

2) in the soccer game, if you have to sit out a game because there are too many players, you are guaranteed to play in the next game-- even if someone from the winning team needs to be relieved-- but in the basketball game, if there are more than five players, and you miss your foul shot, you will NOT play in the next game . . . as the winning five always get to stay on;

3) because of this rule, more fouls are called in the basketball game and the score is more important;

4) the soccer crew has an email group but the basketball group does not;

5) if the weather is decent, the soccer group will play outside, while this has never happened with the basketball group . . . even when it was 95 degrees in the gym in the summer;

6) more advice and strategy is dispensed by the experienced basketball players, and it is more often accepted, or at least entertained and discussed . . . while during soccer if anyone mistakenly attempts to give someone else advice, it usually results in a vehement argument (which may happen in a language other than English)

7) sometimes at soccer, while we are warming up, we talk world politics . . . this never happens at basketball;

8) there are a couple of women that occasionally play in the soccer game-- and they can hold their own-- but I have never seen any women at the basketball game;

9) you can bring your kid to the soccer game, and if you get there early then he might get to play some-- my seven-year-old son once played for a while before everyone got there . . . but I've never seen any kids at the basketball game;

10) the soccer game has people with names such as Mario, Gio, Jose, Guillermo, Felipe, Mohammed,  Javier, Yorim, Ahmed, Yusuf, Ari, Josi, Bruce and Mike . . . the basketball game has people with names such as Al, Keith, Ben, Tom, Chris, Anthony, Richard (Cob), Eugene, Bruce, Isaac and-- of course-- Mike.

Soccer

Soccer . . . soccer soccer soccer soccer soccer . . . soccer . . . soccer soccer . . . soccer . . . sometimes when you say a word too many times, it starts to sound weird.

Something Gained . . . and Something Lost

The New York Times ran an article last March about the "new model" for soccer in the United States, and as a coach I have been seeing this idea slowly being implemented in New Jersey . . . essentially, the United States Soccer Association wants to "uncouple high school soccer and the training of top youth players," and so these potential stars will not have the option to play for their town in the fall,  instead these players must train and play year-round on regional Development Academy teams . . . so a good player essentially has to choose whether he will play for his school, or play on an elite team (and he also has to choose soccer as his only sport . . . no lacrosse or tennis or golf in the spring . . . no hoops in the winter . . . it's got to be soccer, soccer, soccer) and while this may help us compete with Brazil, Argentina, and Germany on the world stage, and while this may be good for the highest level of U.S. soccer, it's not going to be particularly good for acquiring a girlfriend . . . which is what playing high school sports is all about . . . because you're never going to impress a girl by explaining to them that you play on a Development Academy team-- a team that plays games in some faraway place against some other abstract Development Academy Team . . . most high school kids can't even communicate with the opposite sex well enough to ask someone on a date, let alone explain that nonsense . . . so while our soccer skills may increase, and while these players will certainly be able to focus completely on soccer -- because they won't have any girlfriends -- there is something terrible being lost here (and it's certainly not anyone's virginity).

Energizer Dave

So yesterday I ran a few miles before soccer practice started, and then I ran quite a bit at practice-- I do all the sprints and running to inspire my players (beat the fat man!)-- and then when I got home, Alex wanted to use his new (used) cleats, so I went out and played some soccer with him and Ian, and then I showered, ate a piece of pizza, had a bathroom issue, probably due to the amount of time I spent running around in the heat, and then I went to the youth soccer coaching meeting . . . I was Catherine's proxy, as she is officially going to be the coach, but she had back to school night so she couldn't make it, and I figured they would be going over the rules and procedures and practice schedule, but it turned out to be a coaching clinic as well, and the ageless guy who's been running soccer camps for forty years (Spencer Rockman) was running the show, and apparently we were going to do drills and play soccer for two hours and then have the meeting-- so I had to run home, change out of my crocs, and play several more hours of soccer (and though I should have taken it easy, I couldn't-- once you start running around after a ball, it's hard to stop) so by the time I got home, after nine, I had been playing soccer and running for something like five hours, and I'm worried that at some point today while I'm teaching, I'm going to fall asleep mid-sentence.

Dave (Reluctantly) Gives Away Another Great Idea

This idea is even better than my Second Best Idea Ever but I should warn you that it is also soccer related; one of the biggest problems with training little kids to be skilled soccer players is that at the early ages, skill isn't really rewarded -- size, speed, and the ability to kick the ball far are the most dangerous weapons a young player can have . . . but these abilities lose their effectiveness once everyone gets a bit older and stronger . . . so you have to create drills that are fun, but also slow the defense down in some way -- because when you are little, it's much easier to play defense than it is to control the ball with your feet -- and so my new brainstorm, which I am reluctant to reveal because I don't want other teams using it (but I'm also so egotistical about Dave's Brilliant Ideas that I can't stand to let one stay secret)  is to do this: 1) make a decent sized grid (square) and place three players in it with a ball 2) send a fourth player into the grid carrying a soccer ball in his hands 3) the player with the ball in his hands is the "chucker" 4) in order to NOT be the chucker, the chucker has to chuck his ball and hit the ball that the other three players are dribbling and passing around 5) the chucker CANNOT touch the ball in play with his body, the only way out of being the chucker is to chuck his ball and hit the other ball 6) if you kick it out of the grid, or your pass gets hit with the ball, then you become the chucker . . . but it's kind of fun to be the chucker, because you're just running around chucking a ball at another ball, so kids don't mind it too much . . . and what this encourages is shielding, because you can protect the ball from being chucked at with your body and butt, and it encourages spreading out and controlled passing, in order to get the ball away from the chucker . . . and it eliminates the usual rugby scrum that kids create on defense because instead of charging in and kicking at the ball, the defense has to take their time and line-up and chuck the soccer ball . . . so it affords the offensive player more time to think, which is exactly what they need at a young age to develop the soccer skills that are going to be useful later on in their soccer career (and diligent readers of this blog will realize that this is the third use of the word "chucker" at Sentence of Dave, and each time I have used the word in a different way . . . how will I use it next?)

Dave Sets a Personal Soccer Event Record!

Last week, in one seven day period, I crammed in a dozen soccer events; and while I don't claim that this is any kind of world record, it's pretty impressive for an introvert like me; for posterity, here they are:

1) I coached a JV game on Monday;

2) coached JV practice Tuesday afternoon;

3) coached travel practice Tuesday night;

4) coached a JV game on Wednesday;

5) coached JV practice Thursday afternoon;

6) coached travel practice Thursday night . . . but I still made it to the pub;

7) coached JV practice Friday . . . I probably shouldn't have stayed for the last round Thursday night;

8) coached a travel game on Saturday . . . and our field was flooded so we had to move the goals and basically create a small field on a different field, so this soccer event turned out to more work than usual;

9) attended a Red Bulls game Saturday night with the wife and kids-- a great game, the Red Bulls won 1-0 and we ate at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in Newark before the game, a good spot;

10) I played soccer with my pick-up crew Sunday morning;

11) coached my son Ian's travel game later on Sunday;

12) then watched my older son Alex's travel game, which started directly after Ian's game on Sunday;

and the result of all this soccer is that the game invaded my dreams and consciousness, I woke up thinking about it and went to sleep thinking about it . . . and like when you repeat a word over and over again until it sounds like gibberish, there were times when I found my life existential and absurd, but at the end of the week, on Sunday, when both my sons played travel games and they scored all the goals (Ian scored two in a 3-2 loss and Alex scored 1 in a 2-1 loss) which made everything meaningful again, which is ridiculous, but no matter how much I know you should stay detached from your children's athletic success, there's still nothing more exciting than when they score a goal-- especially for my son Alex, who rarely knocks one in . . . and there's more of the same in the coming weeks, so I'm going to have trouble coming up with non-soccer related material.

Soccer Triathlon

I completed my first soccer-triathlon of the fall season yesterday: I played soccer, watched soccer, and coached soccer . . . I played pick-up with the usual suspects for 90 minutes in the morning, then watched my son Ian play for his club team from in the early afternoon, and finally coached the town travel team-- Ian's old team-- in the evening . . . I could have hit for the soccer-cycle if I did color commentary for a game (or filmed a game? or refereed a game?) so that's something to shoot for, and while it was fun and entertaining, my legs were sore this morning.

Soccer IQ

If you coach soccer, play soccer, or a interested in soccer tactics (but you don't want to lose your mind looking at inscrutable charts and diagrams in a book like this) then I highly recommend Dan Blank's Soccer IQ . . . it's chock full of pithy coaching tidbits (including lots of stuff that you probably already intuitively know but did not know how to explain to players) and simple diagrams and concepts and tactical philosophy boiled down to practical application-- I'm sure I'll read both volumes several times and I've already recognized that our team often plays "the impossible pass" and tried to explain how to remedy this.

Nets: The Reason Why America Doesn't Dominate in Soccer

Statistically speaking, America should be better at soccer; we have a large population and massive participation in the sport, but we can't seem to produce a lot of players who compete at the highest levels of the game, and I have figured out why: we have too many nice goals with nets in them . . . when American kids are milling around before soccer practice, they invariably start shelling someone in goal with dead ball shots from twenty yards out, which is a horrible waste of time -- it's barely soccer-like, rarely happens in a game, and often ends in a head injury -- and so I've banned the practice, my players have to juggle with each other before we begin, but it's really hard because a goal with a net is an attractive nuisance, and so kids can't help doing something totally inefficient which is akin to place-kicking, when they should be dribbling around each other and playing little games in small space  -- street ball -- and so my proposal is radical: remove the goals from the soccer fields and only bring them out on game day, if we do this for a generation, soon enough, we'll be playing like Brazilians (and, as I learned at a SAGE meeting, nets are not even required by the laws of the game).

11/13/2009

Jim Haner's book Soccerhead: An Accidental Journey into the American Game further reinforces what I have wholeheartedly come to believe: there is no better sport than soccer-- and although I can't and probably wouldn't take back the time I spent experimenting with other sports-- golf, football, rugby, mountain biking, road biking, tennis, ping-pong, pong-ping, track, swimming, marathon running, rock climbing, snow-boarding, fly fishing, wrestling, hiking, kayaking, surfing, basketball, skim boarding, and yes, even roller-blading (insert gay joke here)-- I sort of wish that I had just focused on the beautiful game alone . . . I certainly would have saved a lot of money on gear; but the book also presages my future and it might be monotonous and bleak-- in between coaching the eighth grade boys I'll be coaching my own kids on their travel teams, and my '92 Jeep, which is already full of soccer equipment for half the year, will become a full time soccer storage facility for PUGS and corner flags and balls and cones and ripe smelling pinneys, we won't be able to go on vacation or do anything else because the kids will always have games and tournaments and practice and eventually soccer will replace life, and so part of me wonders if my future would be more relaxing, fun, and enjoyable if my kids join the chess club instead (but this doesn't seem likely-- now that my school season is over, my backyard is full of cones and balls and I run a short fun soccer clinic for Alex and Ian every day).

To Pep Or Not To Pep?

Last Friday was the Fall Pep Rally, and the football coach was the MC and he was amped -- he wore a school football uniform, with half his face painted green and the other half painted white, and had a hoodie undershirt so that his already unrecognizable (and quite scary) face was also obscured by a hood that protruded from his green and white jersey -- and not only did he appear psychotic, but he was also yelling into the microphone at an ear-shattering volume . . . so I was happy when, after a deafening: "AND HERE'S THE BOYS SOCCER TEAM, THAT HAS A STATE GAME ON MONDAY!" that he handed the microphone to my friend Terry -- the varsity soccer coach -- because Terry took the pep down a few million notches; he said, calmly "We play Sayreville on Monday . . . unless it rains too much and the game is cancelled," and then he announced the names of his players . . . and then there was more screaming and yelling from the football coach, until the girls varsity soccer coach was handed the microphone -- my friend Kevin -- and he made a rather eloquent and heartfelt speech about the dedication of the athletes on his team, but this was way too long and coherent for a pep rally and I think most of the kids lost focus . . . so it looks like coaching soccer and teaching English is a good match, but coaching soccer and teaching English and having a lot of pep might be impossible (and, of course, Terry was right about the rain).

The Yin and Yang of Soccer

In honor of Sunday, the most holy day, which has been deemed both The Day of Soccer (both travel and pick-up) and the Day of American Football, I will bequeath the internet a sporting thesis; soccer presents a perfect yin and yang of speed and deception, a player with a dearth of one can compensate with an abundance of the other-- when I was young I got away with lots of speed and a modicum of skill, but now that I'm old and slow, I need to add an element of trickery to every move I make-- and while other sports require these elements in some amount, it's not a perfect balance; basketball inordinately rewards height and this throws off the equation, and football prizes size and strength as well as speed (in fact, with enough size and strength, there's no need for deception . . . this is most blatantly illustrated by the fact that soccer players "dive" when they are fouled, while football players run forward for yardage-- whether they are being face-masked or not) and it is this simple balance of skills that makes soccer the most accessible game in the world and why there are infinite variations in how to train and play.

5 Soccer Games and a Wake

I apologize in advance for being a one-upper, but I definitely one-upped Four Weddings and a Funeral yesterday: I watched five soccer matches and attended a wake . . .

1) at 9 AM, while entering grades and checking email, I watched England vs. Wales . . . I was rooting for Wales-- I love to see England choke in these big tournaments-- and England won 2-1;

2) at noon, while eating a delicious five dollar lunch special (chicken cheesesteak) at The General Saloon, I watched Ukraine vs. Northern Ireland, and I was rooting for the Ukraine, in honor of my buddy Roman . . . and the Ukraine lost;

3) we then attended my friend, co-worker, and podcasting partner Stacey's father-in-law's wake;

4) at 3 PM, while I was getting my kids ready for my son's travel team semi-final game, we watched Poland tie Germany . . . I was rooting for Poland, of course . . . no one but the Germans root for Germany;

5) at 6 PM, I watched my son's semi-final game . . . they had a heroic win against a better team in the quarter finals, and they went up 1-0 on this team, who didn't look quite as skillful but was more organized, and my son's team eventually lost 2-1 . . . and I was rooting for my son's team, of course, so that was the toughest loss of the day;

6) at 9:30 PM, I watched the US beat Ecuador, and I couldn't lose because I was rooting for both sides, as I'm a US citizen of course, but I have some Ecuadorian players on my soccer team who were decked out in full Ecuador gear at my son's game and I'm a big fan of the Galapagos Islands . . . so a 2-1 US win in a fast-paced game was all I could ask for . . . and, as a bonus, before and during the game we listened to Phil, who is a soccer guy, sing and play music on his guitar and they set up cornhole in the back room of Pino's, so it was an excellent end to a soccer-filled day of mindless rooting, which was briefly interrupted by a reminder of our ephemeral mortality.

Next Year, I'll Buy Her Some Earrings

 My wife is an excellent cook-- creative, efficient, and unflappable. Her skills are crucial in the fall, when our house is extraordinarily busy. She's usually consumed by teaching elementary school math and science, running the community garden, and directing the school garden club. The boys and I are consumed by soccer. Despite these hurdles, she whips up meal after meal, day after day-- often without any help. This fall she worked around four soccer schedules: Alex played JV soccer, Ian played middle school soccer and for a club team, and I coached the middle school team and the in-town travel team. She's also the go-to person for help with school work (I'm more of a school work consultant, good for specific questions but not really capable of sustained service). Catherine times our family dinners around games, practices, and buses. She's the household MVP, keeping us full and healthy. We rarely ordered pizza.

Years ago, at the end of a similarly busy soccer season, Catherine went on a two-week cooking strike. She decided there was a lack of appreciation for all the planning, shopping, prepping and cooking she had been doing. It was a difficult period. The scab labor was unskilled, surly, and mainly underage. Negotiations were tense. Meals were lame. We survived but did not thrive. The boys and I learned our lesson: it is difficult to plan and serve delicious healthy meals all week. Though we learned our lesson, we didn't learn how to actually pull it off.

Last year when the season ended, we preempted any sort of labor dispute by announcing that we would do the cooking and dinner clean-up for a week. The end of the season coincides with Catherine's birthday, so not only did we avoid a cooking strike but we also provided her with a birthday gift. That's a win-win.

This year for Catherine's birthday, I upped the ante. Not only would I cook for a week, but I would also plan the menu and do the shopping. At the grocery store. Now I know-- truly know-- what it takes to cook various, creative, delicious and healthy meals for a week. It takes the planning skills of Hannibal, the scope and courage of Alexander the Great, and the confidence of Napoleon. And running a campaign like this is stressful, and the best way to relieve stress while you cook dinner is to imbibe. So you'll also need the liver of Winston Churchill.



The first step is to make a menu. Here is mine:



Sunday: green chorizo tacos

Monday: pasta, meat sauce, and sausage

Tuesday: leftovers . . . everyone had something planned

Wednesday: grilled shrimp, snap peas, and thin-sliced crispy potatoes

Thursday: grilled chicken, broccoli and rice

Friday: out to dinner . . . yes!

The second step was the hardest (behind butterflying, pounding, and marinating the chicken breasts . . . so gross). The second step was to go to the real grocery store . . . the big ShopRite in Edison. We have a small Stop & Shop in town which I can handle-- I know where things are and there isn't a big selection, but the big ShopRite in Edison is much cheaper than the Stop & Shop in town. Catherine gave me an out on this one: she said I could do the week's shopping at the smaller, more familiar store, but I decided it was time to man-up. If I was going to do it, I was going to really do it. She told me that there were a couple of products that wouldn't be in the main store. They would be located somewhere called "the annex." The "annex" was connected to the main store by a passageway akin to King's Crossing Platform 9 ¾. I would have to sprint towards an aisle of cat food and hope for the best.

There was a point during my shopping trip when I nearly broke down and quit. I almost shed tears. Seriously. You'd cry too. The store was huge, disorganized, and there were too many choices. I was in there forever, wandering. I actually found the annex (and bought some facial tissues . . . but I never found the 9-volt batteries). And even after all that time in the store, I still had to stop at the Garden Farm Market on my way home for produce because I couldn't find anything decent at ShopRite.

Why was it taking so fucking long to buy some basic shit? Why are food stores insane?

The new episode of Freakonomics tackles this question. In it, business Professor Michael Roberto makes a pitch:



ROBERTO: “I’d like to open a new kind of grocery store. We’re not going to have any branded items. It’s all going to be private label. We’re going to have no television advertising and no social media whatsoever. We’re never going to have anything on sale. We’re not going to accept coupons. We’ll have no loyalty card. We won’t have a circular that appears in the Sunday newspaper. We’ll have no self-checkout. We won’t have wide aisles or big parking lots. Would you invest in my company?”



This store sounds like a train-wreck. But it turns out that this is a successful business. It's a description of Trader Joe's.

I highly recommend "Should America be Run by . . . Trader Joe's?" It's Freakonomics at its best. The topic sounds boring: grocery stores. But there's a compelling narrative, and an explanation of how you can succeed in a low margin, super-competitive, rather bland business. Trader Joe's is killing it in terms of sales per square foot. How the fuck do they do it?

There are no sales, no discounts, no Whole Foods/Amazon algorithmic data tracking. When you enter the door, you've joined the club. It's kind of fun. Sometimes there's free coffee. There are lots of employees and they are instructed to drop everything and help you if you need help. The last time we were there, my wife couldn't find blue cheese. An employee told my wife that she would go in the back and find the blue cheese for her, and then she told my wife to keep shopping and I'll find you and give you the blue cheese. Brilliant. My wife continued to shop and because the store is small, with no annex, the employee was able to easily find my wife and give her the blue cheese.

During my ShopRite shopping epic, I wandered the meat section at for fifteen minutes, looking for ground pork. I was obviously bewildered. I stumbled on someone who might have been the butcher and asked him if they had ground pork. He said, "Nope. None of that today." Do they ever have ground pork? Could he go in the back and get some? Could he grind some for me? I have no clue and I didn't ask. He didn't offer any more information. I bought some ground turkey instead.

Trader Joe's offers a limited selection of each product and they may switch out a product at any time-- although they always have the staples-- but because the food is good and because you haven't worn yourself out looking for things, when the product you want isn't there, you might actually try something new. The store encourages experimentation. And it's small enough to browse but large enough to have everything you need (especially if it's a branch that sells alcohol). They have three kinds of salsa instead of seventy kinds. And they don't cater to everyone. There's an ethnic bent to the food and if you don't like it, you can shop elsewhere. I've only been inside a Trader Joe's once, and I was slightly overwhelmed-- but I get slightly overwhelmed when I enter any new place, especially when people are frantically buying things . . . it's because I vividly imagine the environmental disaster we are rushing towards. This is more of a "me" problem than a problem with Trader Joe's, and now that I've learned about the store through a podcast, I'm more inclined to go there. Ridiculous, but a little background knowledge goes a long way with me.

Trader Joe's is small on purpose. A typical grocery store carries 35,000 different items. Trader Joe's carries 3000. There aren't that many aisles-- I could walk up and down every single one without suffering a panic attack. And they rush you through the line. No weird interactions where you have to "borrow" the cashier's club card. I don't need to develop that kind of intimacy with someone I just met. If I see them on the street, am I obligated to lend them my umbrella? You don't have a card? Do you want to sign up? Uh . . . maybe? I made that mistake once. There's a Trader Joe's up the road from us now, in North Brunswick. I might go there. On my own. And buy some food. Coming from me, that's a bold statement.

Once I made the menu and purchased all the food, the week went fairly smoothly. Or it appeared smooth from my perspective. I only lost my shit twice. The reason for the smoothness was the lubricant: alcohol. I don't know how people who cook every night don't become raging alcoholics.

My thought process always went something like this: time to cut and pound the chicken! Yuck! Gross! You know what would help with a task this time-consuming and disgusting? Some music. And a beer. It's almost five o'clock.

The only night I didn't drink last week was Tuesday. Leftovers night. Soccer night. I now realize that soccer practice and the fact that my wife does most of the cooking are what stand between me and daily drinking. I know daily drinking doesn't always indicate alcoholism, but it's a step in that direction. And it makes you fat. If I had to cook every meal every night, with only my children to help (who are incredible at disappearing whenever there is work to be done) then my alcohol consumption would triple.

The two nights that I grilled were a double whammy. I normally like to have a beer when I grill . . . it's quiet and relaxing out on the porch; I can look over my sprawling bamboo plants into Donaldson Park. The dog accompanies me and occasionally descends from the porch to chase a squirrel off the property. A warm grill on a cold night, it's the life. But I normally have one beer while I grill. Because my wife is inside managing the other things. The vegetables, the rice, the potatoes, making the salad. whatever. Reminding the kids to finish their homework. Meanwhile, I'm "grilling," which includes a lot of staring into the park and enjoying the fresh air. Occasionally, I'll flip something. But grilling when you are also cooking other things inside the house is not relaxing. It's frantic. And when you're in and out so many times, feeling the pressure to get everything ready at the right time-- doing math, subtracting the minutes that the potatoes will be done from the amount of time it takes to grill shrimp-- then you might grab another beer as you pass by the fridge . . . or another glass of wine. Or another tequila, lime, and seltzer. It's dangerous.

I only lost my cool twice. Once was when I tasked Alex with cooking the snap peas while I finished grilling the shrimp. He decided they were burning-- even though we agreed we wanted them undercooked and crispy-- and he poured a bunch more olive oil in the pan. The peas turned out fine, but sort of drenched in oil. I snapped at him over those snap peas, and I shouldn't have. I told him he should have asked me before doing anything so radical, but then I changed my mind. Chefs get irate in the heat of the moment. I apologized and told him it was good that he took some initiative. Normally when I cook, I ask Catherine a million questions and it drives her crazy. Cooking is experimental, and Alex went for it. Next time he might know better.

The other time I got annoyed is when I was serving dinner and Catherine was fooling around on the computer. The house rule is that you're not supposed to be fooling around on the computer when dinner is served. This house rule is mainly designed for me, so when I chastised her, I had an out-of-body experience. It was like I was her, chastising me.

I'm going to chastise myself now. Time to get off the computer and do the dishes. And miracle of miracles, Catherine has already done the grocery shopping.

Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Get Stung in the Testicles

Sports can often be a weird exercise in futility: you practice and practice but never get to use your skills in the perfect situation (unlike learning how to knit or draw or play a musical instrument, where practice usually rewards you with a linear increase in skill and enjoyment) but once in a great while, the sporting gods shine their light on a lucky soul . . . and right now the light is shining on my son Ian . . . he plays on the middle school soccer team that I coach, and the team is comprised of 6-8th graders and this means there is a HUGE difference in sizes and development among the players-- Ian is on the small size for a sixth grader (78 pounds) and so when he's next to a large 8th grader, he looks like a midget-- the jersey goes down past his knees-- but he was the only sixth grader in attendance at last Friday's home game (I made him come to cheer on his team) and it was a close one, we were playing better soccer but the the other team (South Amboy) had a free kick specialist who bent it like Beckham used to bend it: he scored two forty-five yard curling spinless rocket shots and they also had a six foot tall Asian kid playing goalie who wasn't that coordinated but swatted down everything we shot at him; it was tied 2-2 in the second half and we just couldn't finish, so I threw Ian a bone and put him up top-- I figured it couldn't hurt and I could give him a few minutes of time as a reward for showing up (the rest of his sixth grade friends were playing Nerf war) and within moments, he got to use every soccer skill I've ever taught him, all in one play-- he ran through a ball forty yards out-- I'm a huge proponent of opening your hips and running through the goddamned ball, instead of stabbing at it-- and then he kept it glued to his body, juggling it on his chest, thighs and feet, then he sealed off a giant defender, faked a shot with his strong foot (he's lefty) and then cut it to his right and shot to the far post with his weak foot . . . it was, as my friend Roman described it, a David and Goliath moment . . . unforgettable and awesome . . . and, as if this wasn't enough, on Wednesday we had an away game against Woodrow Wilson, a middle school three times our size, and once again, we were playing much better soccer but the field was awful, the bumpiest I've seen, and we gave up a handball PK and an ugly counterattack goal and were down 2-1 in the second half . . . so I threw Ian in again, for luck, and two minutes later he snuck over to the far post and one of 8th graders zipped a ball across the box, from the left to right, and Ian-- a lefty-- took it off one bounce from ten yards out and slotted it in with his right foot . . . most kids will take a whack at that ball with their strong foot, and often whiff or knock it over the goal, but Ian kept his composure, used the proper foot, and scored another critical weak foot goal . . . this fired us up and our star player drilled one in from the eighteen moments later and that was enough to do it-- we won 3-2 . . . so good stuff for Ian: two huge goals in twelve minutes of play . . . I'm interested in what he'll do in the game this afternoon, as he insists he's going to score again . . . but I've got another son on the team: Alex-- he's a seventh grader and he's a skilled player as well, but despite skillfully juggling with me for an hour on Saturday, he didn't play very well in his game on Sunday-- not for lack of practice, but probably because when we were at a BBQ on Saturday night, he was attacked by a swarm of yellowjackets and got stung eight times (including two stings on his testicles) and so you'd think the sporting gods would reward him for enduring the stings and still showing up to play on Sunday, maybe give him an easy goal, but instead he was recompensed with a cleat to the ankle in the early minutes of the game, and then-- once he limped back out there-- an elbow to the face, so he was a gimpy bee-stung trainwreck, and while he toughed it out and didn't ask to sit, he didn't play particularly well . . . so you never know how it's going to go out there-- one moment you're the hero, the next you're the goat, and it doesn't always correspond with how hard you practice.

An Open(ly Angry) Letter

Dear Coaches of the Livingston Legion U-10 Soccer Team,

one of my many faults is that it takes me far to long to recognize when people are being rude and obnoxious, and so when I do realize it, I get very angry because my emotions have been simmering for too long . . . so at the start of our U-10 soccer game last Sunday, when you accused our team of having a player older than our age bracket, I laughed it off, and told you "that's what the cards are for" but you kept pressing (and I later learned the referee should have taken charge here because the player cards are the official documents certifying the players) and since I was trying to put my players into positions, I directed your allegations to our team manager-- who you totally stressed out so that she went home and got the copies of our players' birth certificates-- and then you still said "you're telling me that kid is ten" and she said "I'm not telling you anything, this is his birth certificate" and meanwhile, what I should have done is direct the coaches to the kid's father-- who is one of my assistant coaches, so that you could have accused him to his face of forging documents in order to have a kid play in a younger age group on a low level travel soccer team-- an insane accusation-- but I wasn't thinking on my feet because I was trying to coach a bunch of nine year olds . . . and then we found out that despite your allegations, your team was far more skilled than ours (and you had a goalie bigger than our biggest kid, and your goalie played four quarters) and when you realized that I subbed my kids in and out equally, not necessarily based on size and speed-- then the two of you shut your mouths on the age issue and stopped yelling at us and started yelling at your own players (and my players for "distracting" your players when my subs were passing a ball around behind the bench) and-- even though you were better-- we played hard and the game was tied 0-0 with two minutes remaining when one of your bigger, older looking players popped a goal over my goalie's head (the fourth goalie I played, and while he's excellent, he's also the shortest . . . because I have a lot of kids who love to play goalie and I let them all do it-- whatever size they are, because they're all going to grow and they all need the experience) and when your team scored, the two of you screamed, jumped up and down, and hugged each other . . . over a nine year old kicking a ball in a goal . . . all the things I try to avoid on the sideline, and so after the game, once I realized just how pathetic and obnoxious you guys actually were, which took far too long, I told you "that you were everything that is wrong with youth sports in America and that it's a pathetic sight to see too grown men hugging when a child scores a goal in a U-10 soccer game" and you guys retorted that one of my players said something during a PK and that should have been "a red card" and while I told you that I admonished my players for doing that, it's not explicitly against the rules (and I believe one of my players said "turkey legs" while their player was taking the kick-- this is what I heard through the nine year old grapevine-- but the ref said he didn't hear anything) and so I'd like to thank you for turning what was supposed to be a relaxing and fun Sunday home game, with all the the parents out to watch their kids run around, into a stressful and horrible afternoon,

indignantly yours,

Coach Dave.

Football, Soccer, and the Cinema

Sunday's Seattle/Green Bay game was the first time all season that I watched an entire NFL game-- start to finish-- and while the finish turned out to be extremely exciting, I was mildly annoyed for the first three quarters: Seattle looked inept, and there were a lot of commercials for new movies (which wasn't annoying in itself, I can usually tune out movie trailers but my children and their friend had to do a full review of how "awesome" each movie looked . . . they-- like many folks much older-- are still deceived by the fast cuts and the good music into thinking that every movie will be a masterpiece, simply on the strength of its trailer) but luckily my friend Roman was demoing his new deep-fryer for us, so he kept us all amused through the slow sections of the game with delicious and crispy fried-treats . . . and then, of course, the last thirty minutes of the game were a lightning-paced rollercoaster of plot twists and spectacular plays (and discussions about the rules-- my kids are still at the age where the ins-and-outs of onside-kicks and two-point conversions are riveting . . . and I can get sucked into it as well: I still don't understand why Seattle didn't go for two when they were down 16-0 and they scored their first touchdown . . . but seeing how the game turned out, I guess that's why I'm not an NFL coach) and I will say that it was fun to watch football with a bunch of soccer players (my son mistakenly called the Superbowl "the World Cup" during the game, much to the amusement of his friend, who is a real football fan) and unlike a soccer match-- which would have been long over if it was 3-0 in the rain going into the last stretch of the game, an NFL football game always has the possibility of a cinematic ending . . . and no matter what, there will be "an ending"-- a specifically final chance, an official climax-- unlike the flow of a soccer match, where there is no exact moment you can call the last attempt at victory-- and so I guess we like out sports the same way we like our movie trailers: episodic, fast-paced, explosive, and awesome (and Seattle's fake kick to set-up their first touchdown was extra awesome for me, because it made me remember why I started rooting for the Seahawks in the first place-- I was watching a Giants game in 1979, pre-LT, so it was ponderous-- and at the half they showed Seattle running a fake-field goal play and then throwing the ball to their little Mexican kicked, Efren Herrerra, who scored a touchdown . . . and apparently they did this often, and so, on the merits of that awesome play, the Seahawks became my AFC team -- they were the opposite of the Giants: they had no running game to speak of, except when Jim Zorn scrambled; and Zorn mainly heaved lefty passes at his little wunderkind white-boy wide-receiver, Steve Largent, and-- until they got Kenny Easly in 1981-- their defense was porous . . . it's hard to identify the current NFC powerhouse Seahawks to that AFC expansion team, but it still reminds me that I had a super-excellent Seattle trash can in my room when I was a kid-- the Seahawk logo wrapped all the way around, and I was also the only kid in town sporting a Jim Zorn jersey).

Looking for the Silver Lining in Chronology

My older son Alex-- a senior in high school-- had a good day on Friday; he learned he was starting at left-back in the soccer game on Saturday-- his first start in a real varsity game (and this is great for him because the team is excellent and mainly composed of super-skilled technical club players and Alex only plays soccer during soccer season-- but he's been playing well, he wins balls in the air, has some speed, a good left foot, and he just surpassed the six-foot mark, so he's pretty big-- so he was very excited to be out there for a home game against rival Spotswood) and then he drove to the movies with his friends and saw Shang Chi and then when he got home, he saw his SAT scores and he was very happy-- he improved 150 points and did especially well in math (and he wants to be an engineer) and then Saturday out on the turf the varsity coach said he was excited at how well Alex had been playing which is always nice, because as the JV coach, it's hard to tout your own kids too much-- it's a conflict of interest-- so I just agreed and told him he had been working hard and was really fit-- and Alex was a JV superstar last season, playing every minute of every game without injury and holding the team together so we could have some fun against generally tough opponents (we are in a conference with schools twice our size because we're competent at soccer) and Alex started the game playing excellent, winning balls on the ground and in the air, stepping to balls, and making some great distribution-- we're only playing three in the back so they can't screw up-- and then he called a head ball and went up for it and the center back, his buddy Luke, who is at least 6 foot three, maybe more, came flying out of nowhere and they clonked heads and Alex had to come off-- he might have a mild concussion or he might have just taken a hard short above his eye-- but he was annoyed that he got hurt in his first varsity start but I told him that it's a long, long season and he'd be back out there and to look on the bright side-- at least he didn't have to study for the SATs with a headache-- it was a great thing that the SATs were a couple weeks BEFORE he got his bell rung.

Dave's Second Best Idea Ever!

Fans of this blog may recall Dave's Best Idea Ever, and might even be familiar with some of Dave's Bad Ideas, and so-- because Dave is a humble man who responds to the opinions of his readers-- I will let you decide which category this new idea of mine belongs, but-- not that I mean to sway you-- based on empirical evidence, I think it should be in the former . . . and I will warn you that this is a Soccer Idea, but I think that even non-soccer folks will appreciate its brilliance . . . The Problem is this: it is difficult to get very young soccer players to pass the ball to their teammates, or even to remember that their teammates actually exist, and so I wanted to create a drill that not only encouraged passing, but also had an element of immediacy to it, and not only that, I wanted the drill to reward passing instead of dribbling, which is difficult to do when the players are young and the skill levels are various, but I figured out the solution to this insoluble problem and I present it to you free-of-charge because I consider this blog to be my public service to the universe (because there's no way I'm ever going to serve hobos at a soup kitchen) and so here is the answer: zombies . . . little kids know how to act like zombies, and so I made one child be the "zombie" in the drill, and this "zombie" must hold a ball out in front of them (which is a bit mummy-like, but no one questioned it, and it slows them down) and then I instructed the zombie that all he or she desires is to zombie-walk at the ball and tag the person with the ball at their feet with their "zombie-ball" and so I put three kids in a box made with cones and told them that they have to keep the ball inside the box and away from the zombie-- but they can't get tagged by a zombie or kick the ball out of the box, or else they become the zombie-- and the zombie moves slow enough for just about any player to have enough time to look up and make a decent pass, but the zombie is fast enough (and usually making scary noises) and this encourages the player to get rid of the ball quickly and to pass it to a teammate . . . instead of just dribbling aimlessly . . . and the drill certainly makes them realize that there are other people on their team, and they understood quickly enough that the best way to defeat the zombie was to stay spread out and kick it far away when the zombie approached, and, for once, they were doing something that approximated actual soccer, passing a ball around from person to person-- and even though they were only avoiding a zombie, it still made them behave in a totally different way than they normally behave on the pitch-- and one group got good enough that I had to introduce a second zombie . . . and now I am dreaming of an entire side of zombies, forcing the children to spread out and knock the ball around like a miniature Manchester United . . . so all I can tell you is, give it a try and enjoy the results, and I am positive you will admit that this is in the running for Dave's Second Best Idea Ever.

Trick and Treat

Despite being exhausted from non-stop soccer events, I decided to so something fun and ambitious at my son Ian's Thursday night soccer practice: Soccer Olympics! with prizes for the winning team! . . . I figured it was the day before Halloween and the kids would enjoy some friendly competition-- and I had a funny joke planned; I was going to award the winning team oranges and then give the losing team candy, though my wife said this was a bad idea and the kids wouldn't get the joke and might kill each other and/or me-- but she was wrong, the kids tried to kill before the prizes were awarded-- the friendly competition wasn't so friendly: there was an actual fight, kids were cheating, bickering, etc. and my son got busted for an f-word violation, and so it turns out you shouldn't have Soccer Olympics the day before Halloween, but once we sorted out the mayhem and announced a winner, I forged ahead with my joke and said, "Okay, for the winners, who did so well at all the events and are such great athletes, we have something healthy and delicious: oranges!" and the kids were happy to have them-- for a moment-- but then when I said, "Okay, and we should punish the losing team and give them something bad for them . . . candy!" and then there was a fun moment of cheering and complaining, from the losers and winners, respectively, but there was no outright fighting, and then I gave the winners candy and the losers the rest of the oranges and everyone was happy.