What It's Really Like to Coach a Tots Soccer Team

I signed my son up for soccer earlier this spring, then I get an email saying that they don’t have enough coaches for all the teams. I don’t like saying no to opportunities for my kids, so I said Yes, I’d do it. I figured it would be a good chance for me and Conor to bond and to spend some time together. I have seen so many “soccer moms” with their vans full of kids, the whole stinky sock deal, and all smiles and high buns.

Well, I hated it and it was sort of a disaster. Neither I or the other coach had ever played soccer and had never coached a sports team before. That’s not to say we didn’t make a go of it while we were on the field. I just don’t know anything about soccer or gathering 4 and 5 year-olds for productive activities. I felt like I was coaching the puppies from puppy bowl on Super Bowl Day. There was not one coach that I talked with who had their shit together and could tell you where we were supposed to be, what we were supposed to be doing, what in the heck our fundraiser was all about, or even how many kids they had that night to play. We all just did our best and mostly concentrated on making sure our team wasn’t scoring on the wrong end of the field (it happened a lot).

And another thing, my kid was one of the 2 out of 10 that wanted absolutely nothing to do with playing soccer…at all. I tried to bribe him, talked to him about it until I was blue in the face and completely exhausted. I tried to reason, beg, and bargain. Nothing worked. He just didn’t dig soccer. Apparently running around on the field competing with a hive of kids for a ball with a high potential for getting kicked in the legs was not a great bargaining chip on my part.

The last day of the season came and I was so frickin’ excited. Probably even more than Conor was. I bought some pizzas from the pizza place that sponsored our t-shirts and we played and then ate. It was sunny like crazy and a beautiful day to end one of the most chaotic part-time hobbies I have ever picked up.

Moral of the story, I’m never coaching kids sports teams again. It was a hot-mess and not my thing. However, I will still be on the bleachers cheering my kid on in anything his little heart wants to try at the moment. Right now, it’s tee ball twice a week and he is L-o-v-i-n-g it, thank goodness!