Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
By Kelli Bowen
I am not a very sports-minded person. I don’t follow sports. I don’t watch sports. I don’t listen to sports. I don’t participate in sports. I don’t have anything against sports. It’s just not my thing, but I show up.
My thing, or one of them, is being a mom. An active goal of my momming, is to give my children more opportunities than I had. This means my children are given the opportunity to do the sports. Miss E is currently in track and Miss A is trying soccer.
This is the first year of my community having “our own” soccer program and about one third of all of the children hopped on the soccer train, so there’s a need for coaches…and that ladies and gentlemen is how I became a soccer coach.
I have never played a game of soccer in my life. One of my friends was dating a Turkish soccer player in college, and I know we went to watch him play. Practice? I don’t know. I was much more concerned with watching the male soccer players than watching what the male soccer players were doing. Don’t judge me…I was an age that ended in “teen.”
So besides maybe chatting up soccer players in my younger wilder days, that’s the extent of my soccer experience. Thankfully there wasn’t an extensive interview for the coaching position. I showed up.
Some of my friends asked why, oh why, Kelli would you coach anything “sportsball?” The answer was simply: there was a need and I know I can do it.
I am co-coaching 4 and 5 year olds. This is their FIRST experience with soccer. It’s like herding cats (I’ve been told). I need patience and to show up. I’ve got one out of two and I can be energetic. I’ve got this!
The first practice, was pretty darn uneventful: it was canceled. It snowed and the temp was around freezing. This means we have ONE practice before their first “game.”
The first actual practice was also freezing. The entire time was spent giving high-fives, and saying “use the inside of your foot” “tap the ball to stop it” and “short little kicks.” We two moms-turned-coaches have totally got this.
After 28 minutes of practice, two out of six kids were crying (it’s okay, one was mine) and everyone was over it. We did manage to try to do a scrimmage, so maybe they have an idea?? Other coach, who I will refer to as “Better Coach” said she couldn’t help but notice how together the other teams looked compared to ours. I faked confidence. “It’s fine! We’ve got this.” (Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!)
As I packed my leaking, sobbing 5-year-old into the mom-tank, who's yelling “my fingers are freezing!” I thought there’s no way in Hell these kids are going to pull off a game.
In that moment I had a decision to make: anxiety and sorrow about what I could have done better or optimism and excitement about how interesting and far we can help these kids go in our six weeks together. I choose the latter. I smiled to myself. At least I showed up.
Kelli makes her home in Cass County with her husband, two daughters (8 and 5) and two dogs. She works for a regional seed company by day and tries to be an alright mom, wife, friend and writer by night.
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