Soccer: That’s the stuff. A soccer dad’s journey

I came to soccer late. Dad late. My daughter had just turned four and a little ways down the road on my way to work there was a small soccer field.

I signed us up. My soccer knowledge consisted of knowing the game was called soccer.

But it seemed much less intimidating and much closer in proximity to my house than T-ball, so away we went. I would be an assistant coach, and a colleague of mine at work turned out to be the head coach. We herded four-year-olds toward the goal as best we could.

My daughter stood in a corner of the field and sucked her thumb the entire first season. 10 games.

Not sufficiently dissuaded, we enthusiastically signed back up in the spring. Still an assistant, but with a new head coach, I went to a few informal coaching seminars and learned a little bit more. The girl was still working the thumb, but bounced around happily through the games and warm ups as well.

Then the big leap: U6 Head Coach. Quite a rush I must say. I loved pretending to be one zoo animal after another as the kids tried to hit me with the ball. Whenever the cones got tiresome, “kick the coach” got them laughing and running again.

In U8 we went big time: 7 v 7 and two assistants! Still with little clue what we were doing but with an amazing group of girls who soaked up the little soccer knowledge we had. It was this group of girls that would carry me through the next phase of my soccer life. We all lived in roughly the same area, so we mostly got to keep together. Some girls I had with me for more than 100 games through the end of U10.

I decided early I would not be a negative coach. I’d try not to scold, and I’d never dwell on an error. Whether I had a team I could just throw a ball out to and watch, or one that I had to drag up the field with all my mental powers, I would be a relentlessly positive coach.

I found myself being the champion of the play that almost happened. I rarely react to a score. A score is a reward in itself. The parents go nuts. The teammates go nuts. It’s a party.

I got much more excited about the great plays that could have been. I wanted the players to know that I saw how hard they worked to try to make something happen, and I appreciated every touch, every challenge, every clearance, every cross and every shot whether it was on target or a mile wide.

The mother of one of the players I had for many seasons messaged me one offseason to tell me that I was haunting her during his basketball games. Invariably every time someone missed a shot, she’d hear me in her head yelling “OH, UNLUCKY!”, which I yelled often on the soccer field just before I clapped more encouragement at them. On a basketball court, I guess it can be a little more monotonous.

The girls I had in U8 and U10 were exceptional for recreational soccer. And I got to thinking I was getting pretty good at this coaching thing. But with success came opportunities to play tougher teams — club teams — and a whole new world opened up. I was playing Tiddledy Winks on a chess board.

Then my son’s first season in U10 turned into an epic disaster. We finished 0-10 with 4 goals scored and more than 90 against. I had just come off back-to-back first place finishes in the girls division and had a U8 boys team that was decent if not great. I felt there was something amiss in the organization of the league. So, I volunteered to join the board and work on it.

In the season prior, there was a winless team in all three U10 divisions. In my first season as director there were none. And of the 11 players on my 0-10 team, 10 returned to me in the spring. Six of those boys are playing club soccer today.

That season taught me a lot about what soccer is to me. It’s about perseverance. It’s about playing for each other instead of yourself. It’s about winning moments, not winning games. It’s about keeping up with the players I had as a recreational coach. Almost half, boys and girls, are playing club soccer for someone now. My heart fills when I think about it.

And it’s about watching the little girl who stood frozen, sucking her thumb in the corner of the field, grow into one of the toughest, smartest defenders on her team and watching the boy who was on that epic loser score a goal and quietly stride back to the center line as if it were no big deal at all.

Soccer has helped show us what we’re made of. And it does a little more each day.

Jared Peck is @kysoccerguys for SoccerintheBluegrass.com and @itsayshere for the Lexington Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com.