the    sides

Saturday was our first official game in flag football. I told our crew to see it as a practice game seeing how every team is going to make the playoffs. Looking back, I’m glad we had that perspective.

The game was humbling for me on a couple of levels. First, we got rolled up. 24-6. Our guys had a hard time grasping flags which was good and bad. Good - they were there to make the plays. Bad - couldn’t figure out how those flags worked. That’s okay and a fixable situation. By the end of the game, they had figured it out and pretty much shut down the other team.

The team had a blast, we called out our favorite candy bars as we broke the huddle, we laughed, tried trick plays. Great time. So that was awesome.

The more humbling thing was Cooper. I was a decent athlete growing up but not a stud. I was never the first one picked but also was never the last one either. I figured our kids would be “cursed” with the same gene of sports mediocrity. Which on the grand scale of things isn’t so horrible. We’ve made sure that we never set up ’sports excellence’ as the goal for our kids. Learn the game correctly, laugh while doing it.

But Cooper was….well….(dare I say it???)….he was good. Not just good….very good.

I started Cooper at QB knowing that I was going to yank him after the first series to see who else I had who could play the position. On the first play, Cooper hit Harlan on a 7 yard slant that Harlan took another 25 yards. It was awesome. I’m thinking…”Dude.”

On the second play, Cooper had a wide open receiver 20 yards downfield. He’s wide open because everyone on the field knows that there isn’t a kid in the league that can throw the ball that far. Heck, when Cooper winded up to throw it over there, I was thinking “Okay - bold move but there’s no way it’s getting there.”

He unleashes a perfect spiral right to him. Yes, the pass was dropped. Yes, there would be a LOT of dropped passes today but most of those were because Cooper was throwing bullets. One throw hit our receiver in the chest, bounced straight up in the air and was picked off….15 yards downfield.

And so went most of the game. We rotated around quarterbacks and running backs and receivers but we couldn’t catch a cold in Alaska.

We ripped Cooper out of the QB position and put him at middle linebacker for the second half. He was ripping flags off in the backfield, tipping balls - basically being the biggest pain in the rear for the other team. Then he picked off a pass and took it the house.

Touchdown.

After the game, had the coach, the officials and a parent from the other team walked over to me all asking me the same question.

“Who’s #14?”

“That’s Cooper. (Long pause) My son.”

“He’s a freakin’ beast.”

“When the rest of your team learns how to catch, you guys are going to be awesome.”

“He’s not just good…he’s scary good.”

“I’m watching that kid. He’s going to be special.”

Couple of awesome things after the first game…first, parents and kids were awesome. We laughed a lot on the sidelines, learned a ton about pulling flags, and lots of high fives. Everyone was upbeat.

Second, everyone was tired. Which meant everyone played more than what they wanted to. That’s a good thing in little league anything. My other coach did a great job of rotating players in and out. We had some kids volunteer off for a rest - which when they do that, the minute they are ready to go back in, we try to get them back in.

Lastly, most of these kids have never played football before and they are loving the game. They are pumped about the next practice and game. They WANT to play football. Mission 1 accomplished.

On a personal level, I’m trying to figure out how to deal with being a dad and a coach. Cooper made it a little more difficult for me by playing so well. Okay…he played awesome. I’m incredibly proud of him but honestly, I’d been just as proud of him if he had laid an egg out there. That’s what I’ve got to figure out how to keep communicating to him - your value to me has nothing to do with your performance.

It’s hard at times to keep the two separate. Here goes a very public learning curve in this weird place of trying to figure out how to handle success.