Charlie's First Soccer Season

It was a hot day early in September that Charlie had his first ever real soccer practice. He was thrilled to put on the shin guards and cleats on for a reason other than dress-up or playing in the back yard with Dad & Isaac.

His coach was our old friend Sarah and she was really patient with him and all the kids. Soccer at age 6 is very similar to the proverbial herding cats. Their first game was scheduled for 6:30 on a Thursday evening. To no one's surprise, but collective grumbling, that meant the sun went down before time was up.

Several future games had the same planned start time, so I called the rec department to complain/point out the obvious problem. Maybe I wasn't the only one who called because at the next practice we got news the schedule had been adjusted. Common sense FTW! The next game, Charlie had a lot of fun, except when in position as goalie he let two goals in.

The following week, Charlie realized he didn't like playing defense. The way our league sets up first grade soccer, they run around in a large clump following the ball (magnet ball) except for three poor schmucks who are told pretty much to stand in their spot by goal until needed. Charlie was only interested in running around and attempting to score. He protested by purposefully not moving from his spot at all, ever.

Charlie sure looked to be having a blast whenever he was on offense, though he came to a further realization that he was likely never going to make a goal. And this time he refused to even take the field when assigned defense. Frustrating as a parent. This ended up being his last game.

His team was large enough that I'm sure Charlie's quitting with a couple games to go didn't cause any major problems; this just let others have more playing time. It really was fun while it lasted and we're grateful he had the opportunity to play, even if it wasn't ideal.