It was a few years ago when I wrote a Friday’ Note regarding the Hillcrest Kickball club. A short story about the start of a kickball game in the neighborhood as a means of getting my kids out of the house. Wouldn’t you know their friends came out of the woodwork to join in the game and munch on popsicles (the unofficial snack of summer kickball) my wife supplied. Most of all it was about kids being kids and having fun.
Fast forward to this week and chatting with a friend who’s daughter is experiencing high school sports for the first time. Turns out during this week’s game the coach called a timeout. Keep in mind that their team was winning at this time, but not winning by a large enough margin to satisfy the coach. So during the timeout, the coach made the players run sprints. Middle of the game, on the visiting court, while winning, had the team run sprints. Then after the win continued to yell at the team about their poor performance. Then left the team with the following, “get ready for a workout tomorrow morning, it’s not going to be pretty!” I am not a participation trophy kind of person and I firmly believe that if you are going to be involved in an activity to give it your all. I'm also not against discipline, but this coach and many like her was way out of line.
This ‘all or nothing’ approach and year-round, single sport engagement is killing or has killed kids sports.
It doesn’t matter if it is soccer, volleyball, softball, competitive dance, football, lacrosse, basketball, etc. What the parents say about their kids is, “This is my son’s/daughter’s last season, they have no interest in doing this again.” And from the parents, “I’m so done with (insert sport here). Done with the travel, done with the year-round, done with the coaches thinking all kids are going pro and done with other parents. Just done.”
With that as a background, I remembered the Demented Unicorns. About a decade ago we were at a friend’s house. They have three boys, all of which played select soccer. Turns out that our friends were looking forward to taking the summer off from being the Team Parent, Shuttle Driver, Manager, etc. That is when their oldest came to his mother and said he and his gang wanted to play the summer indoor league. Suzanne was less than thrilled. She laid down the law. “I’m not going to do any of the organization. I will not be the team manager. I will not do any of the paperwork. I will not collect the team fees. I will drive you to and from games, period. If you want to be in the league you have to do all of that.” Surely that would be the end of that. There is no way a middle school boy was going to do any of that. Summer was going to be soccer free.
A couple of days later her son had the team paperwork complete. Entry form, player waivers, fees all collected and submitted. They were in the league. The team roster consisted of middle school dudes who just liked hanging out together. Two kids who played select soccer, three kids who had played soccer years before, one kid who was a basketball player who never played soccer and one kid who had never played in an organized sports league in his life.
Suzanne said, so do you have a uniform? Her son smiled and said, “Wait a minute” running up-stairs. He came back down dressed in the team uniform. Pink Socks, pink shorts and a pink shirt. On the shirt was a Unicorn with googly eyes and the words “Demented Unicorns”. Suzanne just shook her head, “Ok, when does the season start?”
Off they went to the first game, no coach and 7 boys head to toe in pink, like an oversized collection of Pepto-Bismol bottles with acne. Someone stopped them saying, ‘Where is your coach, you have to have a coach’. Her son replied, “That isn’t a rule of the league.” He was right. This self-managed collection of pink bubble gum pieces went on to win their first game. They went on to win their second game. For the third game, Chris and Suzanne both attended, fully content to sit in the stands with zero responsibility other than enjoying the action. Early in the game, the ‘basketball player’ team member scored his first goal, turned, pointed at the kid who had never played a sport before and yelled, “You have got to score, it is such a blast!” I believe that was the same game that the opposing coach (a select soccer coach) left without shaking hands after the Demented Unicorns racked up their third victory.
These kids, playing for themselves and having a 14-year-old boy snickering pink humor moment had a season to remember. It wouldn’t have mattered if they won or lost. They were playing because they wanted to hang out together and have fun. But they did win. The Demented Unicorns won the summer indoor soccer league.
They won it all! In so many ways they won it all.
Note: Characters in
this note were based on real life humans and any resemblance of actual occurrences
is more than a coincidence. Some of the
names may have been changed because I have difficulty spelling.
