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fun in fours

sports

First Loss

Saturday 22 September 2012

It had to happen. And perhaps it was good that it did: L’s team lost their first match today, 8-2. With a point difference like that, it was a stinging first loss. Things just weren’t going as they usually do.

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“That team was the best team we played,” L explained. Three young men in yellow managed consistently to stop red team’s offensive charges while also proving themselves to be exceptional ball handlers when on the attack.

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“There were some boys on that team that were really good,” L explained later in the day. It gave her, I hope, a view of what’s possible.

Boosterthon

Wednesday 19 September 2012

It’s half bet, half bribe. It’s a fundraiser, an exercise event, and certainly for some, a bit of a pain.

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I suppose one might argue that it’s an exercise in school spirit and self-confidence. Elementary school activities, we’re finding, tend to combine several elements like that. Show, exercise, fundraising, dance party — I suppose it covers several state educational standards.

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For “the biggest fundraiser for the year” at her school — so it was explained at a recent PTA meeting — L had to gather pledges for a run around a small, 1/16th of a mile route set up in the field behind the school. Nana and Papa pledged a significant amount per lap, adding a cap as assurance of not having to mortgage the house to pay their commitment.

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Sure enough, when it came time to run — and hop, skip, walk, dance — through the boosterthon, the Girl did the maximum 35 laps.

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Which amounts to just over two miles, which is fairly impressive for a five-year-old.

Goal! Again!

Saturday 15 September 2012

Game two. The Girl sits out the first quarter. After her adventures last game, perhaps that’s best — start slowly.

When she enters the game, she volunteers to be the goalie. It’s a potential disaster: I anticipate her frustration if she lets a ball get through. She’s doesn’t take mistakes very easily, and I know as goalie, she’s likely to experience them — especially with number five on the opposing team, who seems to steamroll through the defense like a panzer column.

Sure enough, within a few moments of the start of play, the Steamroller Five comes barreling at the Girl. She pulls up a little short and shoots; the ball approaches L with decreasing speed. She bends down; she’s in position.

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And the ball rolls right through. Instant frustration; intense irritation. She begins marching to the coach, tugging at the goalie jersey the team shares, when I call her back.

“No, sweetie,” I begin. “You have to stay in. This is your position. We can’t substitute right now just because you’re a little frustrated. But don’t worry — it’s your first time out. You’ll get the hang of it quickly enough.”

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And the next time Steamroller Five shoots, the Girl makes the save. She makes a few more as the game continues, but come the second half, she’s ready to go on the offensive.

Her first goal is an act of pure aggression. The goalie makes the mistake of not controlling the ball fully, only gently resting his hands on the ball. L simply takes the free kick.

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Her second goal of the the day, though, is a beauty, a joy to watch. She emerges from a pack of defenders and faces off with Steamroller Five, who’s been playing masterful defense the whole game. Just before Five can reach her, the Girl lets loose on a cross-goal shot.

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that blasts past the goalie — himself a wonder. He’s been stopping shots left and right, and he’s not afraid to dive

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This time, though, he’s a little late. The ball squirts past; Steamroller Five looks on; L collides with a defender — it’s straight out of the World Cup.

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The shot just catches the bottom corner of the goal, with the goalie still refusing to give up and the Girl realizing fully she’ll be on the ground momentarily.

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So with two games down, we have the stats that might just encourage her to continue. She’d probably like it more if she could wear a tiara, though.

Hat Trick

Saturday 08 September 2012

When Pele was just over seventeen years old, he became the youngest player to achieve a hat trick — three goals in a match — in a World Cup match. In 1930, Guillermo Stabile scored a hat trick during his debut World Cup game.

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What happens if you combine the two?

All I was hoping for was a successful first game, and I defined success simply enough: enough enjoyment to encourage the Girl to continue with her soccer adventure. Certainly, I wanted her team to win — winning always feels good. But more than that, I wanted the Girl to leave with an eagerness to return. And so among my great fears was the shut-out. “If L’s team doesn’t score a single goal, it might be frustrating to her,” I thought.

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There were other concerns as well. L is not always the most aggressive person, especially in novel situations, and a first-time soccer game is about as novel as one can imagine.

Yet right from the start, the Girl is aggressive. Really aggressive. She charges the ball without concerning herself about the number of kids kicking wildly at the ball, and she often emerges from the pack with the ball.

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And then she scores.

We’ve all seen the typical reactions among the pros — the wild celebrations, the leaping, the shirt front over the head. L seems completely oblivious to the significance of what has just happened. Countless games have finished one-nil, and the sole scorer is automatically the hero.

L, ignorant of all this, simply walks away from the goal calmly, a bit confused even. But my reaction and the coach’s reaction tell her something big has happened.

“It can’t be a more perfect first game,” I think. No matter what happens now, we have something to celebrate. Even if her team loses 5-1, we have that single moment to smile about. “Wasn’t that a great feeling to score?” I’ll be able to ask.

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But the Girl has other things on her mind. She continues charging. She continues heading straight for the goal. She continues shooting.

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And she misses. Once. Twice. And then more lightning: another goal.

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And then a third. A hat trick, on her first time out. As she walks away from the goal the third time, her teammates celebrating, a small smile appears on her face. She knows what she’s done. She’s gotten a taste of athletic greatness. And she likes it.

Not content with having scored the only goals for either team, she proclaims with calm assurance as we walk back to the car, “Next game, I’m going to score five goals.”

Watch out Messi, here comes the Girl.

Practice

Sunday 26 August 2012

I learned to appreciate soccer sitting with friends at this or that bar in Lipnica Wielka or sitting with my in-laws, watching club play as well as Euro Cup and World Cup tournaments. It’s a deceptive game for the uninitiated, and since I’d never played or even really watched the game, I had no idea about much of it.

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And so when it comes time to start helping the Girl with her new soccer skills, I have to rely on the basics, things I’ve inferred from watching but never actually been taught — like kicking with the inside-top of the foot for better control.

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It soon becomes clear, though, that the Girl either kicks the ball with the side of her foot or the front of her foot — perhaps too much too quickly.

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Other skills are simpler, like stopping the ball.

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In the end, though, we deduce that the best option is simply to encourage the enjoyment of the game, The finer points will come later.

On the Field

Saturday 25 August 2012

It's perhaps a cliche of parenting, the desire to give more to your children than you had as a child. Unfortunately, it seems our culture equates that "more" materialistically more often than not, but the question of experience seems more important. And to that end, we have to step out of our usual circle and involve others -- for instance, ten others, to make a soccer team.

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Providing the Girl with the opportunity to kick a ball back and forth is easy enough: we've done it in the backyard a time or two. Attention spans, though, tend to be short in such activities. There's always a cat to chase, a trampoline to pull out of the basement, or something else -- squirrel! Somehow, though, things change when kicking the ball in a controlled environment with virtual strangers. Perhaps it's a desire to create a positive impression; maybe it's the drive to conform and kick along with the others. Whatever the case, the Girl's first experience with soccer provided her first and foremost with a concentrated dose of semi-organized sport.

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Still, kicking and even throwing a soccer ball, even in concentrated doses, only provides so much, and it's all physical.

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There's more to sport than the physical. In fact, the physical, at a certain level of competition, is only incidental. World-class athletes have practiced so much that the maneuvering and contorting involved in a given sport is almost a matter of muscle memory. Watch a gymnast doing a routine on the pommel horse and it's hard to imagine he's thinking through every single move, every single flex of the muscle. By that time, the game is mental. He knows he can do his routine perfectly: he's done it flawlessly in practice countless times. It's now a question of doing it when there's something -- everything -- at stake. It's now a question of confidence and mental strength.

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A gymnast can't really take his pommel horse skills into the business world and do much with them. He can, however, take his self-confidence and his ability to perform well under stress into non-sporting life and achieve just about anything he wants. So it's not so much the physical I'm worried about as I watch the Girl run about the soccer field.

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I'm grateful, of course, for the improvement in coordination and strength such an activity brings, but more important is the mental development.

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I'm more pleased when she calmly chases down a ball that's gotten out of her control, maintaining her cool the whole time, than I am when it becomes clear that she's one of the fastest kids on the field.

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I'm more pleased when I see her calmly go get a ball that a teammate has kicked away from her out of childish spite

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than I am when I see a good, strong kick.

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But I'd be lying to deny that the kick makes me feel good, too.

Ice Skating

Sunday 23 January 2011

A Toast to Refined Consumerism

Monday 17 January 2011

We are a consumer culture. The fact that the manufacturing industry is diminishing while the service sector continues to grow (relatively speaking). When all one's basic needs are met, consuming can flourish. In such a state, we can begin to invent perfectly useless products and services that add nothing quantitative to one's life and only barely had a qualitative measure for some brief moment until the novelty wears off.

Standing in line to return a product at Best Buy today, I noticed such a product: the ProToast Toaster.

For less than forty dollars, you can buy a toaster that not only produces tasty toast but also affirms your choice for Favorite Football Team.

If only it could help you with your Fantasy Football standings...

Football

Saturday 26 June 2010

With the Word Cup in full swing, it’s a great time to be in Poland: three matches a day during the qualifying round.

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It was in Poland that I fell in love with football. Notice: I used the worldwide term (regardless of language), and I am not referring to that ridiculously named American version that employs foot-to-ball contact only in punts, kick-offs, and field goals/extra points.

What do I love about football? It’s very much like life:

  1. You can go for long, “boring” periods where players simply bat the ball around, then suddenly — out of seemingly nowhere — a goal. Yet the boring periods aren’t if you watch what’s really going on. Just like life.
  2. Referees can, and often do, make mistakes, and players have to suck it up and live with it. From Maradonna’s “Hand of God” to Chilean player’s unintentional tripping of a Spainsh player in the game above (which resulted in a red card), there are bad calls every game. As in life, those inflicted with injustice simply have to suck it up and move on.
  3. There are occasionally instances of injustice (like the US’s lost goals) that go unexplained. Players and fans have to suck it up and move on.
  4. There’s a lot of trickery and faking injuries. Players try to get something for nothing — just like life.

Not only is it life like, but football is also athletic in the extreme. Unlike American “foot” ball, real football involves few if any breaks. The action is continuous. American FB games look like this: play for three to seven seconds; mill about for two minutes; repeat. Real football involves running. Continuously.

This is, incidentally, why sponsorship in the States is so hard to find, and thus why it’s not televised often: where does one put the commercials?

Tour de Steroids

Wednesday 25 July 2007

Last year: Landis, Ulrich, Basso.

This year: Vinokourov, Moreni, and Rassmussen.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch the Tour again. What’s the point? It’s no longer a contest of who has the most endurance, who trained the most, who has the most — dare I use THE sports cliche? — heart.

It’s who can best hide his doping.

Anyone who wins a stage, a title, the Tour itself will now be immediately suspect.