Youth Sports

Thumper started 3-year-old soccer at the YMCA, with one practice last week, one practice this week, and his team's first game this morning. It was mostly a hot, sweaty, comical chunk of chaos, starting with some basic instructions, like, "Your team stands on this side:"



Then they were all told to put their right hands over their hearts. Then they were all told which one was their right hand. Then they were all told where their hearts are. Then they were all told to put their right hands over the "Y" on their shirts. Then they took some sort of oath:



I couldn't quite hear, but it didn't sound like the Pledge of Allegiance. Perhaps they were swearing eternal devotion to the referee? I'm not sure.

There was much waiting for the kids to get back into position, and many adults running around like Australian sheep dogs getting the kids back into position.



#9 in orange was the real superstar. He was one of maybe 2 kids who was able to dribble and knew exactly where the ball was supposed to go. He didn't always care which goal he was dribbling toward, but he scored probably 90% of the goals made today.



That's my boy kneeling down as the action begins, watching #9 dribble right past him, and then sitting down in the grass. He also liked to throw himself on the ground far from the action and make angry faces because "somebody pushed me down!" All in all, it was a lot of laughs, with only one hardcore pushy dad yelling at his kid. And his kid reeeeaalllyy didn't want play.

Shortly thereafter, Thumper began to get into it a little more, yelling, "Go Cardinals!" throwing a high five or two, and actually making some attempt to slow down that scoring juggernaut, #9.



And thus Thumper begins his youth sports career, following precisely in the footsteps of his old man by getting completely blown out by the competition. Yay!