One boy's football season wrapped up today with a win, placing them first in their league. This made for a very happy boy. I am a very happy mom as well, not only because they performed so well.
You can learn alot about people from the sidelines. Youth sports brings out the best…and the worst…in people. Coaches run the gamut from those who stack teams and find every loophole to make superstars to those who throw water bottles and argue with the referees to those who maintain a persistant cheerful demeanor come what may. We got the latter this year and were ever so grateful.
I have come to realize athletics is a sort of metaphor, especially for guys. All of life's major challenges play out on this small stage – preparation, teamwork, taking direction, dealing with authority, playing fair, and learning to deal with those who don't. So it is especially important that those responses and attitudes being cultivated are those you'd like to see kids have in analogous situations. It is a big relief when the coach's vision lines up with your own in those areas.
Good work. Great season.
Awesome kid.
Starry Sky Journal 
I have come to realize athletics is a sort of metaphor, especially for guys. All of life’s major challenges play out on this small stage – preparation, teamwork, taking direction, dealing with authority, playing fair, and learning to deal with those who don’t. So it is especially important that those responses and attitudes being cultivated are those you’d like to see kids have in analogous situations. It is a big relief when the coach’s vision lines up with your own in those areas.-
This is what so many women and non-sports fans just simply don’t get. “it’s just a game”… dealing with frustration, failure, success, and getting back up and dealing with the next challenge ahead, learning from past mistakes, taking every game/day one game/day at a time. I am glad you have learned this much from your kids and our sometimes ridiculous love of sports. This is the exact reason why I coach. I want to give kids the opportunity that I never had, while having parents fall in love with me along the way!
and what i mean by opportunities that i never had- is not that I didn’t have opportunities from you guys, it’s that I sabotaged so much of my own performance and success with how I dealt with situations. Just wanted to clarify.
I gotcha darlin. Though I think that too is part of the metaphor. You can’t play for anyone else. You can coach. You can cheer. They have to play their own game. : )