In mere weeks, our parks will teem with screaming children. Parents will line the sidelines entrenched in their folding chairs, cheering, clapping and, at times, yelling. Coaches will bark orders in hopes that the mass of players bunched in a circle around the ball will at some point apply some of the skills they have learned from the biweekly practices they have struggled through.
Hoards of miniature bodies mass around soccer balls moving up and down crowded fields on Saturday mornings, parents fight for parking spaces and neighboring communities crowd with cars. Soccer moms (and dads) take over the roads with packed SUVs, and public parks overflow with practicing teams.
Tracy youth soccer season has officially begun.
Four short years ago, my daughter suggested she play soccer. Remembering my soccer days many years ago, I could think of only one thing: Why? Why in God’s name would she want to subject herself to the game of endless running?
All I could remember from my many years of youth soccer was going to practice, running till my heart felt as if it was going to explode and wanting nothing more than a drink of water. Before the days when mothers thought drinking water from anything other than a plastic bottle would send their little loved ones to the emergency room, we fought over the drinking fountain or a garden hose as if our life depended on it.
Who doesn’t remember taking that first swig out of hose if you didn’t wait long enough for the cool and bug-free flow to reach your mouth?
As I turned in my daughter’s completed sign-up paperwork, I was asked a question I never expected to have to answer: “Can you coach a team this year?”
At this point, I was barely ready to commit to driving my daughter to practice and watch her Saturday games. Suddenly, I had to think about committing to what I could only imagine would be not only a time-consuming effort but also an added stress I was unsure I could handle. Thoughts of angry parents demanding their child play forward, kids running around the field out of control and my overall personal lack of soccer knowledge all raced through my mind.
Without thinking deeply enough about what I was about to do, I simply responded, “Yes.”
As my team’s first practice neared, my stress level rose. Knowing my soccer knowledge was limited to four years of endless running while suffering what I thought at 11-years-old was a severe case of heat stroke brought on by an uncaring coach who refused me water, fearing I would get a cramp, I was not confident in my ability to formulate plays.
What I did know, however, was how to look like I knew what I was doing. With that, I was off to the mall. One hundred dollars and three stores later, my look was complete.
Stepping on the field of that first practice, I called my team over to talk. Clearly unimpressed with their coach’s matching black soccer outfit, the players paid little attention. My life-saving assistant coach and I worked the 11- and 12-year-old girls through a prepared list of drills. I had no idea that this would be the start of a four-year life-changing run in youth coaching.
That first year, we watched a group of 14 individual girls grow into a team of dedicated and focused pre-teens. Parents watched their kids learn new skills with the soccer ball while developing socially and working as a group toward one shared goal.
Entering into what is most likely my last year coaching soccer, I will struggle with bittersweet emotions.
I will be thankful for the time I have spent with my daughter as she enters her teen years. I will be thankful for the opportunity to guide another soccer team through the struggles of a season in the hope they learn new skills, celebrate success and even experience defeat.
As I lace up my well-worn 5-year-old soccer shoes, I can’t help but think about how volunteering for local youth sports may have helped shape the lives of the players I coached — but not as much as working with these wonderful kids has helped change the life of the man who coached.
• Brian Williams is a 16-year Tracy resident, husband and father of two who works as a supervisor in the cable, phone and Internet industry. He’s among a select group of local Town Crier columnists in the Tracy Press.
She's got baked bean teeth!
Just a few things to think about.
Brian