Soccer

Conner is going to play soccer this spring. Also, surprise, I'm going to be one of his coaches. I got a call Sunday night from someone from the NRS (North Rutherford Soccer) league and she said, "Mr. Teague? Yes. I have you down as an assistant coach here. I am calling to let you know the coaches meeting is tomorrow night at 7pm."


"Uhhhhhhhhh..... what?" was my response.

So, when Anita signed Conner up, she and I had talked about doing the coaching thing and figured it would be too hard for us both to try and coach a team since keeping up with Zach would be tough for practices and games. Because of this, I just made the call that Anita should try to be an assistant coach and I'd sit back this year. After all, she's been really excited about doing this and has been waiting somewhat [im]patiently for Conner to get of age. Since she was the one who played collegiate soccer and is by far more knowledgeable on the sport, I thought it best she be the first one to tackle this. Well, somehow they misread the form, and since my name was on the form for insurance information, they took me down as an assistant coach and there you go. Next thing I know they are calling me and saying, "You have a coaches meeting tomorrow night."

I was a little flustered at first and not sure how I thought about it. Mostly, I didn't want Anita to lose out on getting to do this. It wasn't that I didn't want to do it at all. I really kind of did secretly, even though I was/am nervous about it since I haven't the foggiest idea of what to do or where to start. Anita finally just said, "You're already signed up. Why don't you just do it. I think you'll have a blast and I know Conner will love it." So, there we are. That's what happened.

I went to the coaches meeting Monday night and it felt like a Twilight Zone episode or something. There were TONS of parents there. This meeting represented HALF of the league and there are 65 teams in only these four age brackets. There I was sitting there at the meeting looking around at all these "old pros" to the parent-coaching-soccer-land....thing and I wasn't sure what to make of it. All I could think was, "This looks like some weird scene in a movie." I eventually met the coach of the team (Jose Martinez) and we sat down and went over the paperwork they gave us and picked a practice time, etc. He is hispanic, but speaks english well. He did ask if I could call the parents since he figured they'd understand me better since he has a thick accent. He was a nice guy and I can tell he probably knows a thing or two about soccer. He said he has been playing soccer for about 13 years and I said, "That's great because I probably haven't played soccer in 13 years, so at least one of us will know something."

We were assigned Team France much to my behest. I was thinking, "Couldn't we get a cool country? We'll probably have to surrender every other game or something." I asked the lady handing out the uniforms, "So, what's our uniform? Just a white t-shirt or something?" - I don't think she got it. Oh well.

Last night I sat down and called all of the parents (4 people). There are only 6 boys on a team, and 2 of them are my child and the coach's child. I talked to a parent at 3 of the 4 households and after doing that, I have to say that I'm really pumped up. I was much more relaxed after talking to the parents and the last parent I talked to has 4 boys and he said he also coaches in the NRS league and also at the Lancaster Christian Academy (private school here in Smyrna). He talked to me for awhile and really encouraged me about the whole aspect of being a coach. Though I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that my son is old enough to starting his very first team sport and that I'm at the stage of my life were I am a coach on my son's team sport, but all in all I am super excited. I'm really looking forward to the season and I can tell Conner is really excited about it as well.

We will be practicing at 6:00 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, for 30 minutes to an hour. Likely, for as long as their attention span holds. I would love it if anyone would like to come down/up/over to watch a game. I'm sure Conner would really enjoy having someone else there cheering him on that he can show off for.

Here is the schedule for the season:
04/08/2006 (Sat) - 1:00 PM
04/15/2006 (Sat) - 9:00 AM
04/22/2006 (Sat) - 1:00 PM
04/29/2006 (Sat) - 10:00 AM
05/06/2006 (Sat) - 11:00 AM
05/13/2006 (Sat) - 10:00 AM
05/20/2006 (Sat) - 11:00 AM
05/27/2006 (Sat) - 11:00 AM