the G sides

I’ve tried to make it a point to NOT coach my kids. Why?

First, I’m as competitive as they come and quite frankly, I don’t need the extra drama.

Second, I deal with parents all the time as a youth pastor. Most of the time it’s pleasure and about a subject matter that matters. With coaching, normally it’s the other way around and never about anything more substantive than playing time.

Third, I need my kids to get used to having other authority figures in their life other than me and Amy.

Lastly, I enjoy the role of cheerleader parent as opposed to ‘coach’ parent. I want to cheer, celebrate and be positive. Not the instructor, expectation parent. I’m going to be doing enough instruction as it is.

But the flipside that Amy and I have run into is this – while they may be well-meaning, a well-meaning coach who has no clue of the game or the fundamentals is incredibly frustrating. I’m not going to lose sleep if my kid’s team goes 0-10 if he/she is learning the fundamentals. On the other hand, if the team goes 16-1 but they don’t learn the basics of the game and the coach is a jerk – that’s just as horrible. We’ve had both experiences.

So this morning, Cooper started his flag football league. As the kids show up, I see a disaster happening. There is not one adult taking charge, introducing kids to each other, or in general acting like a coach. The rumor is out – there is no coach and no parent has of yet ‘stepped up.’

Cooper and I start playing catch, then another kid starts playing with us, then another and another. I’m learning names because it’s just the youth pastor in me. We start playing this funky game of calling out the name of the person you’re throwing to and catching from. In about two minutes, every kid on the team is in the field hollering each other’s name.

It’s at this point, I realize I have a choice to make. Either coach the kids, teach some fundamentals, and enjoy the time or be a pansy and walk to the sideline, not coach then complain all season long about the job some other parent is doing.

One parent steps over. His name is John. “Hey…I guess you’re the coach, then.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re my assistant then.” He smiled at first then he realized what I said.

“Oh, no. I don’t what I’m doing.”

“Great, we’ll be awesome together.”

And so started my coaching career.

After a 45 minute practice and a 8 play scrimmage, let me vent a couple of random observations about flag football.

1. The other team ran 4 straight running plays. We stopped one of them…barely. We’ll get better at grabbing flags without knocking down kids…we have to or we’ll be the Oakland Raiders of the league. But we turned around and ran 4 straight passing plays. We completed every pass. Apparently defense is not going to be the strong suit of our team or this league. That’s going to be fun.

2. The other team’s coach said to me afterwards – “Normally, they don’t pass in this league.” I smile. Long pause. Nobody is saying anything. I finally cave…”Okay…sooooooo what does that mean?”

“Nothing.” And he walked off.

I leaned over to John and said – we are going to have so much fun. We’re going to run flea flickers, reverses, halfback passes, and deep bombs. Why? Because it’s flag football and because it’s a bunch of 9 and 10 year-olds AND because I’ve got 2 kids who have cannons for arms.

Cooper looked at me on the way home and said – “Dad, are we seriously going to throw the ball that much?”

“Every down.”

He started smiling from ear to ear. “This is going to be fun.”

Exactly.

3. I think I got lucky. We have 8 kids on the team. Perfect number. The game is 5 on 5. It’ll be easy to play every kid at multiple positions.

4. Parents…has 17 years of student ministry prepared me for little league parents? I’ll keep you posted.