You did? You know how to play?
There was a discussion a while back about how schools keep taking away games and stuff kids have been known to play for many years because of a few complaints (cry babies if you ask me). Most recently the elimination of the game of tag from a school in Colorado.
In the discussion someone mentioned how now a day any kids can join a sports team, unlike before only those who could play the game made the team. I don’t know, it makes sense to me. If you can’t play baseball, why let you on the team? Isn’t that what they do in the big leagues of all sports? I guess eventually someone came up with this idea that not allowing those children who don’t know how to play was bad for these children, a put down, as if telling the kids they are no good. Well, it was the truth, they were no good, but I guess telling the truth is a bad thing as well.
Well, just yesterday I became witness of just this kind of “any kid can play” action. My son recently joined a soccer team. He had never played the game before, except maybe you every now and then kicking of a ball outside with his friends. I figured he could try out and se if he’s any good. Turns out he is not that bad, with some work and techniques he can be a pretty good player. Interesting enough I had not realized that I had paid for him joining before he even tried out, meaning that he was in no matter how bad he was. Then after him being assigned to a team I realized that the coaches were evaluating the players not only to see who was good, but to see who sucked and therefore balance out the teams with a few good players and a few not so good players. My son’s team has one kid, around 7 or 8 years old, who can’t kick the ball if his life depended on it. I’ve seen 4 year olds kick better than this kid. He lacks motivation, interest and skills; he acts like a small child and gets distracted very easily. What is even funnier is that his parents are Hispanics and big fans of soccer. I’m sure the father is looking for his son to follow in his footsteps in learning a tradition game played by most Hispanic cultures. But either this kid is a late bloomer or he just doesn’t have it. He seems more like a slow kid to me, a child who does not act his age. I came to this conclusion when the peewee league was practicing just besides us and the boy pretty much acted the same way those kids did. The coach had a hard time keeping them kids within their practice area and they seemed to be having more fun than any of the other teams practicing. The boy seemed to pay more attention to the peewee league than to his own. Most of the other kids, including the 2 girls on the team, are pretty good players, a couple are actually very good.
One thing I noticed yesterday was after practice one of the coaches spoke to my sons coach about how they had made some chances on the teams. My son’s team acquired a new player, a really good one and we had lost a girl. We had 3 before. Apparently they did not balance out the teams properly.
Well, I don’t know whether to be OK with all of this or feel upset over the idea of having so many kids who can’t play soccer at all. I saw some from other teams and there were quit a few just like that one boy in my son’s team. I like the idea of giving a child a chance to learn the sport, after all how else will one know if they can play or not, but how do you keep the rest of the kids from blaming the one kid on the team who just can’t play for their loses if they lose? I’m sure some here will say to teach them not to be mean and stuff, easier said than done. I seriously doubt all kids will be respectful, well educated and nice even if all the parents tried. Kids will be kids.
Well, I hope all goes well and I hope the kid improves. I don’t see it happening, but then you never know. Miracles can happen.