Jack's first soccer game

In keeping with the theme of this week ("firsts"), Jack had his first soccer game last weekend.

It's funny to me.  Most of Jack's friends have played soccer for at least one year.  Several of them have played for two or more.  Jack has never been interested.  At all.  I never wanted to push it, because, honestly, I have no interest in soccer myself.  I know it's the most popular sport in the world, but come on.  We live in the USA.  I love football and baseball.  I could probably get into basketball or hockey if sufficiently motivated. But soccer?  I have never cared.

During the tail end of Jack's last T-ball season, a number of parents were trying to recruit us to join the coach's soccer team.  Jack said he didn't want to join, and I thought that was that.  Then, several weeks later, he said he DID want to join.  I never want to be the reason that my children don't get to do something that they really want to do, especially if it's something active and social like a team sport.  I looked into it, but unfortunately, we had missed the deadline to register for his T-ball coach's team.

Luckily for us, we found out that one of Jack's best friends was joining a team in another league.  Turns out, we hadn't missed that registration deadline.  After filling out a few forms and writing a hefty check, I was officially a soccer mom.

As is often Jack's way, he has a pretty inflated sense of his own competence at this sport.  After the first practice, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, Jack told me, "I am REALLY good at soccer!"  From my perspective, I see that he tends to dribble the ball maybe one foot before he stops and kicks it as hard as he can, sort of the in the direction of the goal.  This is his preferred strategy regardless of the distance and number of players between the goal and his current location on the field.  Add to that the fact that "accuracy" is still something he is working on, his success rate has not been terribly high.

Still, he has been having a great time at practice.  What he lacks in expertise, he definitely makes up in enthusiasm.  Maybe too much.

As it happens, Jack's friend's parents are actually the coaches of the team.  I'm sort of ambivalent about how I feel about this.  While he is clearly comfortable with them, sometimes I wonder if he is a little too comfortable.  He clowns around constantly at the practice, deliberately flopping himself on the ground or horsing around with his friend.  I don't know if it's that he's so excited to be with his friend or that the practices are at the end of a long day, but I'm always unpleasantly surprised at how poorly he listens at these practices.  Jack the Angel Student has spoiled me and left me unprepared for Jack the Naughty Soccer Player.

The week that Jack had math camp, he actually was awarded Camper of the Day on Thursday, which is when we have our weekly practices.  I texted Tom from the practice, "Your son is the most ill-behaved child at soccer practice today.  My son, however, won Camper of the Day at math camp."

All that being said, I was a little nervous about how he would do in his first game.  The team we were playing turned out to be really good.  Or at least really good compared to us.  We lost count of how many goals they scored.  Our team, however, scored exactly one off a really great assist from Jack to his friend.

I was really pleased to see how into it Jack was.  Despite the awful heat, he was fully committed to the game.  He wasn't afraid to kick the ball and was actually listening to some of the strategic tips that the parents were shouting from the sidelines.  I was glad that his contribution to the goal was an assist, because it helped emphasize the importance of teamwork to him.

After the game, he told me that he had so much fun.  He didn't complain about the heat or the score, he just talked about how much fun he had.  Which is basically the whole point of it all.

We are looking forward to a great season.