Thirteen-Year-Old
I ran into traffic coming back from Berkeley and was late to the Thirteen-Year-Old's game, missing the first quarter. The Thirteen-Year-Old was playing right defense--opposite their left forward. The second quarter started. Their coach began yelling, "Bring it down the right! Bring it down the right!"
"Last quarter he was saying, 'Bring it down the left!'" Ann Marie said to me. The Thirteen-Year-Old had shut down a good chunk of their offense: they were now eager not to try him any further.
It was incredibly, beastly hot: 100 degrees or so on the semi-arid treeless plain that is the Burton Valley School athletic field. Nevertheless, a 6-3 victory.
Ten-Year-Old
"Pass it to the middle! Pass it to the middle!" their coach (who had coached the Ten-Year-Old last year) kept yelling to his wings. They tried. But the Ten-Year-Old was playing center midfield. And she had a better ear for her last year's coach than his own players did--she was faster too. So every time they made a pass, she would be there, intercepting it and kicking it upfield to her forwards. Her forwards were exhausted: it was still 95 degrees or so. But they would gamely try to score. We win, 2-1.
America's Silliest Dog
There were no misdemeanors by America's Silliest Dog this Saturday. She stood placidly by while stray two-year-olds sprayed her all over with water from spray bottles.
Last week, by contrast...
(1) While the Ten-Year-Old was holding her leash, the ball came out of bounds and sailed two feet over her head. She took off, pulling the leash out of the Ten-Year-Old's hands, chased the ball down in twenty yards and attacked it--claws and teeth. But leather is strong.
(2) In company with another Labrador: She pulled away a paper plate that was covering two sandwiches--peanut butter and jelly. While she licked stray pieces of peanut butter off the plate, the other Labrador made a grab for both sandwiches, wolfing down one and leaving large tooth marks in the other. "That's OK. My husband will still eat it," said the owner of the sandwiches.
Posted by DeLong at September 15, 2003 07:46 PM | TrackBack
Soccer has quarters?
Posted by: Zack on September 15, 2003 09:43 PMI was just going to say the same thing...
Posted by: Tom Slee on September 16, 2003 05:41 AMThe referees called quarter breaks for water because of excessive heat...
Posted by: Brad DeLong on September 16, 2003 07:06 AMBrad, I think you might want to have a word with Google about the advertisers they're giving you!
On the front page now:
Directessays.com appears to be a plagiarism site. Someone's having a laugh.
Posted by: dsquared on September 16, 2003 07:41 AMThe best soccer coach ever brought an oversized lawn chair and sat the entire match. He gave only 3 points in pregame instructions and corrected problems at halftime or during substitutions. All his coaching was during practice. Soccer cannot be coached from the sidelines. The game moves too fast. By the time a player hears the coach, the player should be doing something else.
Even better is silent Saturday where parents are allowed to applaud and cheer but not issue any instructions. Parents often want players to do things (run all over the field) the coach (stay in position) has told them not to do.
-still playing soccer for fun and without parents
Posted by: bakho on September 16, 2003 08:25 AM[bakho] Yup. When we coach, we tell parents that they should cheer and encourage as much as they like, but that we *never* want them yelling instructions. Apart from anything else, they are usually trying to get the kids to speed up and go for goal when, likely as not, the better option is to slow down and pass backwards...
Posted by: Andrew John on September 16, 2003 03:03 PM