Soccer season has finally ended!

Soccer season has finally ended, and I have to say that I'm grateful. My kids have been part of the soccer circuit for the last five years, but this season somehow just wiped me out. Their practice schedules didn't mesh well, so that his practice ended at field X at 5:00, while hers started at 5:00 on field Y, on the other side of town. The games were also a problem, with my trying to race from field to field to be there for both of them. (Daddy, sadly, was out of town for several game weekends.)

Added to the fatigue of the logistics was the fact that it was a spectacularly losing season for both kids. For the past two years, my daughter was on the winning-est teams in the league (in her age group). This year, she was on a team that had only one win, with the rest being losses.

Now, I'm not a bad loser, so I don't want you to think that merely losing was the problem. The problem was that, for the first 2/3 of the season, the team was losing because most of the girls weren't trying. Halfway through the game, some of the girls would just stop playing and walk around the field chit-chatting. Because my daughter really throws herself into the game, it was depressing to see her dragged down by this kind of disrespect from her fellow team members.

Fortunately, at that 2/3 point in the season, something changed, and all of the girls really began to commit to the game. They still couldn't hang onto more than that one victory, but they were suddenly trying hard and losing by ever smaller margins. Of course, for me, it was too late. The fatigue had already set in and I couldn't shake the feeling of ennui every time a game began.

My son's season was also uninspiring. Although younger than my daughter is, he was on a training team aimed at cultivating the better players for the competitive leagues. For this reason, the coach decided to try a new approach this year -- no regular games.

For most of the season, the 24 boys on the skirmish team simply trained against each other. I went and watched, but it was just like watching practice, so I really couldn't get a head of steam up.

Then, for two major competition weekends, the coach divided the boys into the "A" team and the "B" team and sent them off to play. The "A" boys had a game maturity and aggression that enabled them to play well at these competitions despite the fact that they'd never practiced as a team. The "B" team boys, however, while much more skilled than your ordinary 8 year old, simply lacked the savvy that would enable them to play what amounted to a high quality pick-up game. All four games saw them being absolutely trounced, which is incredibly demoralizing for little boys -- and for little Mommies.

So, now that the days are finally drawing in with Daylight Savings Time, I'm glad to see the last of soccer, and just hope that next year's season will be a little more fun for all of us.