On the Road Again

The girls on MyGirl’s soccer team had a one-night road trip to play some Super Friendlies in southern Kentucky. For those of you who don’t know, Super Friendlies are sort of like a Jamboree. One club hosts several teams that play round robins against teams of their own caliber. It’s the first time MyGirl’s team has ever stayed over night to play Super Friendlies, but let me tell you – I LOVED it! Four games, much cheaper and no worrying about whether we made it out of our bracket.

The girls, as you can imagine, love staying in a hotel with all their friends. They walk the halls, hang out in each others rooms and generally have a good time being somewhere that’s not at home. Oh yeah – and they get to play soccer in between.

When the girls were U9’s (8 years old), gas prices rose to right around $5 a gallon. We were playing in a tournament that was about an hour-and-half drive. In general, we probably would have driven back and forth, but a few of us decided to stay overnight at hotel because it was going to cost the same as filling our cars with gas. The few of us actually turned into all of us. The girls had so much fun swimming in the indoor pool, getting in the sauna, jumping in the hot tub and then back in the pool again. Then we all headed over to a nearby pizza place and they couldn’t seat us all together for two hours…. That wasn’t going to work, so we headed to the restaurant right next door and they accommodated us on a patio. Kids at one table- Adults at another….Add in the fact that the place had a full bar and it FAB.

In the Fall of the following year, we were talking about the hotel we would be staying at for an upcoming tournament Coach #2 found out we had an indoor pool at our hotel and said the girls were only allowed to swim for an hour. When SoccerMomCubed (SM3) and I heard that, we thought he was kidding.

Me: “Are you serious? The girls love that,”
Coach #2: “Sorry, swimming tires you out and they need to be well-rested.”
SM3: “They need to have fun and bond with their teammates too.”
Coach #2: “Be happy I’m giving you an hour, some coaches don’t let their kids swim at all.”
Me (sarcastically): “Yeah, right! Who would do that?” (SIDEBAR: Coach #3 = NO swimming.)
Coach #2: “They’ll have to find a different way to have fun and bond.”

I looked at SM3 and we got to work on that different way. We created a scavenger hunt that sent the girls all over the hotel to find different clues that that we had placed in various places. The clues all rhymed and SM3 and I had a lot of fun doing it. We had a few cheap prizes for all the girls and SM3’s mom made each girl an embroidered chapstick holder for their bag.

And that’s how Game Night at the hotel was born. The games have gotten much more elaborate – and so have the prizes.

We have played Soccer Jeopardy: We had categories like “Foul or No Foul.” We had pictures of the girls on the field and they had to determine whether an actual foul was taking place.

We have played Futbol Feud: “100 soccer parents surveyed (by me and SM3), “Which piece of soccer equipment smells the worst?” (FYI - #1 Answer – Shin Guards.)

We have played Kicktionary: A soccer version of Pictionary.

And most recently this past weekend, “I Survived a Soccer Game Show”– loosely based on “I Survived a Japanese Game Show.” We had the girls running around with cups of popcorn on their feet. We had them heading soccer balls into buckets. We had them digging for golf tees in buckets of shaving cream, cold spaghetti and JELLO.

The girls laughed a lot. We laughed a lot.

A couple of years ago, one of the parents came up to me and SM3 and said, “Thanks for doing this…. They will always remember this part.” I sort of shrugged my shoulders and thought “Eh, Whatever.”

But Sunday morning at the continental breakfast while about half the girls were eating cold cereal and bananas, I asked them, “What was your favorite game we have done so far?”

One of them said she liked the Soccer Jeopardy. I said, “How’d we do in that tournament?” Another girl answered, “I don’t know – we won I think.”

In Futbol Feud – she gets a BIG RED X. We didn’t win. We didn’t place. We tied one, lost one and won one. It was an awful weekend…. at the fields. The hotel must have been okay. Just goes to prove that soccer is more than just soccer.

One day, SM3 and I are going to sit down and write a small book about these games we have created to sell to other soccer moms and we are going to make a small fortune. Or at least enough to pay for dinner.

Sometimes.... Soccer is Dumb.

First let me say, I’ve been wanting to write a blog for a long time. But, I haven’t had the time and I haven’t really had a topic to write about. Well – I’ve had a lot of topics to write about, but not one that I could write about coherently without infuriating myself.

For all the good and fun that soccer is on the front end, there is definitely some serious behind-the-scenes BS that goes along with it.

Let’s start with try-outs. Try-outs are almost ridiculous. At MyGirl’s club, you can go to 2-3 try-outs and supposedly a non-partial evaluator scores you. Girls with like scores are put on the same team for an entire year. That SOUNDS fair, but is it?

What if you have a bad day at the fields and you leave there feeling like Charlie Brown with Lucy pulling the ball out from under you at every kick.

(Just a side bar – Lucy annoys me and if I was her mom, I’d beat her – to a pulp.)

What if you have a GREAT day and every pass or shot you take is perfect? It’s like your ruby red cleats have a spell on them cast by Mia Hamm’s fairy godmother.
Either way, there’s a chance you end up on a team you’re not supposed to be on.

What’s the solution? I don’t know.

This year at our club, one of the age groups was picked in the craziest way I have ever heard of in Travel Soccer. They had try-outs and didn’t have enough to roster two teams. So they had make-up try-outs. The first “x” number of people to get their paperwork handed in at the make-up try-outs, made the team.

Can you hear the manager explaining this method? “So, ummm, we’re not playing A/B or Parity soccer – we’re playing first-come, first-served soccer. Ummm, you’re daughter’s not the best soccer player we had come out, you just happened to show up first. So, congratulations on your timeliness!”

My biggest mistake this year was not having MyGirl try out for more than one club. I don’t know what the heck I was thinking. I feel 100 percent sure we would have stayed with our current club in then end, but it sure would be nice to feel like MyGirl had a choice. Next year, she will.

Here’s something that shocked me too. When I said to some of my friends that I wished I would have taken MyGirl somewhere else to try out – people gave me a loyalty speech.

For real?? Loyalty to whom/what? The team?? The club???? Is the team or club loyal to MyGirl?

I can answer that without question with a resounding “NO.”

Trust me, if MyGirl was at the bottom of the skills totem pole at a try out, they wouldn't keep her because of her loyalty to the team thus far. They would cut her and never look back. (Well, unless we got our paperwork turned in on time.... then I guess we'd have a small chance.)

Loyalty in travel soccer comes in 10 month spurts. You sign with a team and you are loyal to them for those 10 months. And then you move on – new year, new team. Sometimes - new uniform.

Over the past two years, MyGirl’s team has gained two players from other clubs and the team has welcomed the girls. For the most part, I don’t know why they left their old clubs. And I can guarantee you that MyGirl doesn’t care. She’s just glad to have them as teammates this year! And for the next 10 months, we will all be loyal to one another.

The bottom line is - you have to look out for your own kid, because no one else is going to. Every team in every age group at every club is different.

Okay – that’s it for now, but know this: There is plenty more behind-the-scenes soccer nonsense that goes on.

The new soccer season has begun and we go on our first road trip this Saturday. Woo Hoo!! Wish us luck!

BTW - MyGirl broke that tooth again. Another permanent crown next week. Or should I say, "temporarily permanent."