Misadventures of the Mack Family: Fall Soccer, 2013

Soccer season survived another go-round with Jack!

Jack made a lot of progress this season. He started out the season with an anger issue, as I mentioned in Random Jack, September Edition. He also started out the season an absolute beast on the soccer field. He scored five goals his first game, and three goals the next. But as we started to get his anger problem under control, he started to play less effectively. He was still scoring goals, but was not dominating the game like he was before. The Coach and I noticed this trend, but it took awhile for it to sink in that the two might be related. Angry Jack plays his face off, Non-Angry Jack does not. I can't call him Nice Jack, because that's a stretch, so we will just stick with Non-Angry Jack.

One day before a game, we discussed it.

Me: "Hey buddy, what's going on? You aren't playing as well as you did at the beginning of the season."

Jack: "You told me I can't be mad anymore. When I'm mad I play better."

Me: "Oh, well it's OK, I'm really proud of you for not being mad."

Jack: "Can I be mad again?"

Me: "Only if you can keep from hitting people or screaming at them."

Jack: "No, I don't think so. I'll just not be mad."

Well all right, so a couple of important take aways here.

First, Jack is fueled by adrenaline. Because he is little and doesn't understand that adrenaline doesn't have to come from bad places and anger is the only way he's experienced it before, he doesn't know how to get that adrenaline rush any other way than being mad. As he gets older, he will figure out there are other ways.

Second, Jack is able to control his anger. Hurray! We have been really worried about that. He has proven to us though that he can do it, he did it for most of the season and was very successful at it. We had a few incidents in the first two games, and then Jack was great until the last game. Jack and a kid on the opposing team kept teasing each other. The other kid started running circles around him calling him names, and so Jack responded with some words of his own. Then the other kid pushed Jack to the ground and kicked him. His Mom was sitting and watching the entire thing, just like I was. Jack jumped up, grabbed his ball and started beating the kid with it. Not like throwing it at him, but using it as a weapon of mass destruction. Jack eventually stopped and the kid got up and they started to play. Still, no reaction from the kids Mom, and that's good. Sometimes boys just need to be boys. We exchanged pleasantries after the game and that was the end of that.

At any rate, he was great this season. He scored 14 goals all total and had a really good time after that first few games. I'd like to say he made some new friends along the way, but that's just cliche as far as Jack is concerned.

Jack can run like the wind IF he really wants to. The difference between Jack and Justice is that Justice really LIKES to run, and Jack does not. He is capable though, and I'm always glad to see him full speed every once in awhile. That kid chasing him is much bigger than he is and he couldn't catch him.

Same here. Big kid can't catch Jack-Jack.

I've been a soccer Mom for a loooonnnngggg time. Almost 17 years, to be exact. Shandi started playing soccer when she turned 4, and played year-round competitive club soccer until she reached high school. She finished out her soccer career in high school as the Team Captain and with two All-State awards and an MVP award. She was really good, and also really burned out by the time high school was over because that was the ONLY sport she ever played growing up. Justice started playing while Shandi was still in high school, and now Jack plays. Jack doesn't seem interested in anything other than soccer at this point, but I'm hoping he will change his mind when he's old enough to play football.

OK, so where was I going with that. I have no idea. Oh yes I do. I was going to say that my least favorite time in a soccer career is when they are really small like Jack is now. They all just cluster around the ball and fight over it. I'm not talking about opposing teammates. I'm talking about kids on the same team. They take it away from each other and play against each other? Passing? What's that? Everybody wants the goal, no matter the cost.

Our boys are very fortunate that they have The Coach. He's got years and years of experience coaching the most popular sports and our boys typically have that advantage over the other kids. If The Coach says "Don't take the ball away from a teammate", then that's law and they don't do it. They are good about listening to him, even Jack. Actually Jack is better at it than Justice. Justice thinks he knows pretty much everything and sometimes it takes a little louder voice to reach him. Ha.

I always held my breath when Jack went down on the field. One of two things was going to happen. Either he was going to cry, or he was going to jump up and attack the person that put him on the ground. It was a crap shoot. One thing that never happened was him just getting up and continuing to play. There was always a little drama involved.

See that kid with his hands over his mouth in the above picture? He said "sorry!" when he kicked Jack to the ground. Jack said "it's ok" through his tears and moved on. See the kid in the next picture? The one that's laughing at Jack while he's on the ground?

I'll give you one guess how that played out.

Here's the deal with Jack. Other kids don't understand exactly what type of fire they are playing with when they pick on him. He's really short for his age, he's got red hair, and he's a prime candidate for picking on. But then when they do, they get their asses beat and they stop really quickly. While we don't condone fighting, we do encourage protecting yourself. Today's kids are MEAN, and I see why bullying is a problem. These kids picked on each other constantly, even on the same team. It was horrible. Our society doesn't allow boys to duke it out anymore like they used to do and they are all paying the price. Now they just taunt each other mercilessly. And somehow society thinks that's better than a two minute fist fight on the playground? No. It's not. It's worse. Call me old school, but when I was little, someone would throw an insult, the other would throw one back, there would be a couple of punches to release the tension and everything would go back to normal. Just like the story I told at the beginning of the post. Now fighting is taboo so they carry all that unresolved tension around with them and it just gets worse. Yes, there are other ways to resolve conflict. Justice is a champion at it, he's never tossed a punch in his life because his way of dealing with it is to just walk away.

But at the end of the day, boys will be boys. And most of them are not like Justice.

His coach worked really well with him. Go coach. Speaking of coaching, you may be wondering why The Coach didn't coach his team. When we signed up for the season, The Coach hadn't started his new job yet and wasn't sure whether he would be able to do it or not. So he sat the season out, which was tough for him. Towards the middle of the season, Jack's coaches asked him to step in and help out with teaching the kids some things and he coached a game when his coach had to work and also ran some practices. So all in all, even though he wasn't "The Coach", he still got to help out which he really enjoyed.

Jacks' ball handling skills are really good. He can turn the ball on a dime, which is rare at this age. But he has Shandi and Justice to practice with at home and that gives him the advantage.