Can you believe it? It’s already time for the playoffs! This is the best time of year for fans and teams alike, a time when the best of the best rise to the top and show the US who is the best MLS club.
Yes, MLS, meaning Major League Soccer. You have to know that the USA has a soccer league. We share it with Canada, much like the Canadians share a hockey league with us? Come on, guys, the MLS has been in North America for 16 years now. You should try it, you’ll like it. Read more…
The oldest boy is playing soccer. The kind of soccer where they actually have practices and games and as a parent you have to go.
He’s so excited he can’t see straight.
He’s also not very good at it. That’s fine. The boy isn’t all that athletic. Maybe he’ll grow into it. Maybe he won’t. But he’s having fun, and he thinks he’s good and loves it. To me, that’s what it’s all about at this stage in the game.
I will freely admit I had my cell phone out, texting a girlfriend while they were getting organized at the beginning of practice. I had a book, I had my great big old picnic-style blanket spread out, purse half dumped and was putzing around doing this and that. But as practice got going, I set down my phone and sat to watch the shenanigans.
Eight-year-old boys who don’t have a clue how to play soccer trying to practice playing soccer is sort of a hoot. They’re uncoordinated, they don’t pay attention and I just find there to be something joyous and hilarious about them. They’re playing a game in its least competitive form, and it’s just fun.
So all this parental musing about the nature of sport aside, I notice a kid shoving another kid out on the field. Being a completely judgmental parent, I look around to see whose jerkwad kid this is.
And that’s when I noticed.
Everyone is on their phone except me.
Texting, surfing, talking. They’re doing anything except watching the field. So I sit and observe the parents. Thumbs are flying and smiles spread over their faces as they continue to communicate with their digital world that they’ve brought with them to the soccer field.
They are missing it. They are missing the sucky dribbling and passing. They are missing the boys’ total inability to weave in and out of cones. They are missing the corner shot that knocked a kid down.
They are missing their boys being 8 years old and trying to learn a sport. This moment won’t come back. As a matter of fact, it’s over.
I’m not a perfect parent. I text more than I should and hell if my phone would surf the web I’d be snagging content from it as well. But if I believe sports are important enough for my child to play, then they ought to be important enough for me to pay attention to while they learn.
Get off the phone. Jerks.
Sex
Cincinnati Bengal Chad Ochocinco was trying to help Feed the Children by having their phone number for donations printed on boxes of his cereal, “OchocincOs.” A typo sends callers to a phone sex line instead. If Chad were not a Bengal, would this be as funny? I think not.
Premier League players are accused of hiring 15 hookers for a post-match celebration party. This probably wouldn’t be news if one of the hookers had not been a transvestite. He kept that little tidbit to himself while doing “some oral stuff” with Fulham defender Carlos Salcido. Salcido intends to sue the transvestite. That will be fun.
Drugs
Alberto Contador is blaming his positive drug test during the Tour de France on bad steak. Contador, who won the title, tested positive in a test taken the last rest day of the 2010 Tour. His story sounds plausible. The drug detected is given to cows and meat from Spain that was consumed by Contador and his teammates. The fact that it’s the Tour de France makes this one a bit of a yawn. As Contador said, “It’s almost normal for people to doubt this sport now.” Gee, you think? This surely isn’t the end of this story, especially since Lance Armstrong is a former teammate of both Contador and Floyd Landis, the only Tour winner to be stripped of his title. So far, anyway.
Bieber
Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins has purchased the rights to a Justin Bieber song. I have no idea what this means. It’s probably just an Eenie Meenie sign of the apocalypse.
“Shawty is a (sic) eenie meenie miney mo lover?” Who wouldn’t want to co-sign that genius? Um…
None of the Above
Last week I mentioned the sport of wife-carrying.
I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you about the Harris Cup International Miniature Golf Tournament, being contested this weekend in Vestal, NY. Winners of regional qualifiers meet in Vestal to decide a champion. Nobody wins their weight in beer, though.
[source] [source] [source] [source] [source]
Top photo: Robert Seale/TSN /ZUMA Press.
Bottom photo: Eightface.com
My son Oliver decided to try soccer this season, and he loves it. He’s also pretty good. Being fast and motivated serves him well, not to mention having a basic grasp of the game.
There are more rules for parents than for the kids, though. There is no yelling of your kid’s name or any “instructions.” (In our case “Go brown!” is about all I can say.) No keeping score. No winners. No losers.
That would be easier if Oliver were not a bit of a fiend when it comes to numbers and statistics. I once wanted to be the statistician for the Boston Bruins so the apple has not fallen far from the tree. It’s how his brain works, and he’s proud of his accomplishments.
Knowing this was starting to be an issue, I talked to Oliver over the last few days about being a good sport and having fun at soccer. He agreed with me that if he had fun and tried his best, he won. He agreed. After today’s game I asked him if he learned anything. “I learned not to keep score,” he answered, but his face looked like he’d been gut-punched. He said exactly the right thing. I know he’s only 5 but it still felt wrong.
Rewind to a couple of weeks ago. I was at work, chatting with one of the faculty. We were bemoaning the inability of our students to do as they are told, to follow the simplest of instructions, and to do anything that does not involve them being handed everything they need on a silver platter. I asked him how he thought we got here, or why these kids are the way they are. He circled a little bit until I asked him how we keep our own kids from ending up this way. He didn’t have to think very hard before saying the whole “everyone gets a trophy” mentality wasn’t helping.
That conversation reminded me something from the Women and Sports panel at BlogHer. This very thing was discussed and though I didn’t speak up, I sided squarely with those who argued against “everyone gets a trophy.” GoonSquadSarah put it best.
Getting back to my conversation with the faculty member, are we preparing our students for the real world, the very competitive real world, if we only spoon feed them? Do we give them the chance to shine if they never have to figure out how to get from point A to point B on their own, without a detailed map? Would it be any different if they had more opportunities to experience the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat?
I don’t have any good answers but I can tell you how I’m feeling a couple of weeks in to the soccer season. I don’t want to go anymore. He’s having fun and loving it, so I’ll keep going, but I’m trying to pay less and less attention to what is happening on the pitch. It’s better for everyone.
ClumberKim also posted this on her own blog. It was edited slightly before it landed over here.
The following post is by our lovely and talented friend, Suebob. Suebob usually writes over at Red Stapler which is a hilarious blog and also coincidentally where I found this post. – Sarah
* * *
Please bear with me. This post is kind of about World Cup but not really. You’ll see.
(DON’T LEAVE!)
(YOU CAN’T GO! WHO WILL WATER THE PLANTS?)
Thank you.
Today was the World Cup Final and of course Spain won, so I was happy, because it fell under my Suebobian rule of “If you don’t really care who is playing, root for the team with better-looking players.” Sorry, Netherlands. Something about wearing wooden shoes has made their faces pinched and pasty.
Except maybe their goalkeeper, Maarten Stecklenburg. Ai yi yi:
Forgive me, Father, for I have done perved.
I was never into futbol before this World Cup. (I call it futbol because everyone else in the world calls it “football,” not soccer, but if I say “football,” everyone thinks of NFL, so this is my compromise. Works for me.)
I don’t know what synapse snapped together in my head on June 11, but suddenly I couldn’t stop thinking about World Cup. And the weird thing was that I was surrounded by futbol fans, but I had never noticed it before.
It was like I had walked through a secret door into another world – like my house had landed after a tornado and suddenly, everything was Technicolor instead of black and white.
With my World Cup fandom, I joined a new club. A club that consists of about 40% of the people on earth. I gained new friends all over the place.
The Nigerian security guards and I bonded over the knockout round. My cube neighbor, Tai, discovered me during the Round of 16. I trash-talked with a German guy in line at the grocery store. A girl in my class at church gave a dissertation on the storied career of Diego Maradona.
Everywhere I went, whenever I saw someone with a futbol jersey or t-shirt, I would start talking to them. Someone once told me that God gave us weather so that we would always have something to talk to strangers about. Now I have the weather AND futbol.
When I first started the month, I didn’t even know how the tournament structure worked. I had heard futbol was “boring” and “slow” because there are so few goals scored in a game.
By the end, I – a former NBA fan who had to quit watching because I was getting horrible headaches from screaming too loud at televised games – realized that futbol is the most thrilling game on earth precisely because of the emphasis on quality of play, NOT on just scoring more than the other team.
Today, when I watched the finals, I was among the 25% of the people on earth seeing the game at that moment. It felt amazing – like I was suddenly a citizen of the world, bonded by this crazy love of the Beautiful Game, wishing for nothing more in that moment than to see some great play.
If you didn’t watch the game, you can see all the highlights here.
Olé, Olé, Olé. I’ll see you in Rio in 2014.
(p.s. My mom gave me money to buy a cute outfit for my birthday. She said “I hope you got something nice with your birthday money,” and I had to admit “Yes, I did, Mom. I bought LA Galaxy tickets.”)
Heather B.: The flight attendants totally knew what we were all doing. As they did...
GoonSquadSarah: I love this so much, Heather. I think there is something wrong with me...
VeggieTart: I'm going to politely disagree with you on one point: Yes, Ovie's hit...
flutter: Exactly what Trix said....
Tricia Honea: This is so sad. I hope that he will be remembered for his grand career...