Jack, Spring Soccer, and No More Football

Youth football in our area is a huge commitment.  If your kid plays youth football, you dedicate four nights a week to the program, plus Saturdays from July to November.  If you are a coach, or work behind the scenes with the team, you start in around April, and run to November.  If your kids attend the "optional Saturday camps", then your kid also starts in April.  Please keep in mind that this is double the commitment that kids devote to high school football, let alone as a six year old.  ONE sport, seven months out of the year.  And you know what, if that is the only interest your children have, then I can understand the dedication to it.  However, we don't have those kinds of kids, and I don't want them to pigeon hole themselves in one sport or activity.  As the seasons started to pass, the commitment on The Coach's end started to get bigger, and bigger.  And football kept morphing into this HUGE thing that I started to become really unhappy with.  It became a point of contention in our home for the past two seasons and I started to voice my concerns about the year-long commitment it was becoming.  And finally, after a terrible season behind the scenes, The Coach reached the end of his rope and resigned.  This past season was loaded with sideline profanity, cheating, and back stabbing that left him ready to move on and out of that environment.

And I was really happy.  It was bittersweet for The Coach, because he loves coaching football, but he was extremely unhappy in that environment.  Right after word got around that he resigned, a few other teams in the league contacted him and asked him come coach with them, and he turned them down.  Whew.  Relief.  The cheating that I mentioned above was not within our team, but the other teams in the league.  The league was the problem, so I was thankful he decided not to stay in it.

So, this left his coaching schedule wide open in the future.  He immediately accepted the position coaching Justice's middle school team, and simultaneously coached Jack's soccer team.  He recruited Shandi to be his assistant coach, and she covered for him if he had a conflict between both of the boys teams.

Now, this doesn't seem much different than football, but the difference is that Justice and Jack's soccer seasons are only 8 weeks long.  The pace was hectic, but it was short lived.

Jack had a GREAT season!  He played his butt off.  He and Justice play soccer outside in the backyard all the time.  While Justice was spending all his off time working on his game, he had Jack out there with him.  I don't think anybody realized what impact that would have on Jack until his first game, where he easily scored five goals and pretty much lit the field on fire.  

Even The Coach was blown away.  Ha.  Go Jack go.  

I didn't get a single action shot of Jack this year.  Ugh.  But in my defense I was chasing Bo around the field most of the time.  

I took this picture right after Jack had the dry-heaves from his game.  The game was VERY close, and Jack played the entire hour, and he played hard, in the heat.  As soon as the game was over he came to the sidelines and dropped to his knees.  He really gave 100% effort, every game.  I'm really proud of him.  I am also thankful the kids got their athleticism from their Dad.  They'd be in a heap of trouble if they were relying on my genetics for team sports.  I could run like the wind.  Long, fast and far, but good grief do NOT pass me a ball of any type.  LOL.  

The best part of the season is that The Coach got his love for coaching back.  He had the BEST group of kids, and the BEST parents a coach could ask for this season.  It was a great season for him as well as Jack.  

Jack's hair... LOL.  I love this kid to pieces.  He loves his long mess of hair, and as long as he allows me to comb it without complaining, I don't care if he grows it down to his waist.  I gave up this fight long ago.

Last night they all got their trophies.  The Coach took his whole team to get sno-cones and pass out awards.  

Jack finished the season with 18 goals (that is a lot of goals), and was named the MVP.  

Great job, Jack.  We are happy for you, buddy.