Soccer is getting huge, and that’s good for kids on a number of levels. Today’s Eel River Soccer Jamboree at Newburg Park Fortuna was the most enjoyable I’ve had yet. Huge participation and lots of happy healthy kids in an atmosphere so much better than the Little League experiences of my youth. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a soccer league where I lived as a kid. Little League was fun, but unfortunately they let some of the parents drink beer while watching, and it wasn’t fun. The soccer leagues now will actually throw parents off the field if they’re yelling at the kids or refs.
Almost everybody on my son’s team of last year moved up to the Under 10 (U-10) league and remain together. Mid-season last year they really caught on to passing, and though we didn’t have a lot of power we won a number of games scoring a goal and winning with ball control – probably like four games won 1-0, kind of like international play! Well, they haven’t forgotten how to pass over the past year, and now they’ve got more power. They’ve added a couple of players, but all on the team are on the young side of the two-year split which means they’ll probably play together again next year. I’m proud to report that my son Asher scored the first goal of the season within a few minutes of starting. He also assisted in a goal later in the game with a great pass to Noah Kulchin, probably our strongest player, who got by a defender and the goalie to score. It was a high scoring game by our standards – 5 to 4. We won. They won. I’m on the sidelines now and I get to be the parent who tells the coach how he should do his job, etc.
Unfortunately I missed my son’s goal because I was coaching/reffing my daughter’s U-6 game. At the end of last year’s season she told me that I had coached Asher’s team for three years and this year should be her turn. So Jana and I are jointly coaching her team, the Blue Dragons. She’s a powerhouse, and she scored three goals today – one for her team and two for the opposing team. We have some bruisers on her team (going to have to work on that) and some of the other team’s 4-year-olds were a little intimidated by the whole thing anyway, and didn’t want to play. They were a couple of players short, so part way into the game we gave them Lilith (my daughter) and Lucca. It evened things up a bit, and they had a great time. It may be the hardest age to coach, but it may also be the most fun.
I heard that the other Sohum U-10 team, who had some hard games last year, but are older and still together now, won their game 7-0. Asher’s team, being coached by Dan Kulchin, looks forward to the challenge.
My kids’ teams are being sponsored by Redway Liquors and Deli (so funny – reminds me of the Bad New Bears being sponsored by a bail bonds company – but both are legit businesses!) and Humboldt House Inn respectively. If you want some great sports entertainment, come out to Redway School on any Saturday morning starting in two weeks and through November.
The shot is of my son (on left) in action last year, taken by Clover Willison whose son is in green.
Addendum: Well, I just heard that there may not be a varsity football team at South Fork this year, because so many of the players want to play soccer (and that Arcata is having a similar problem). Maybe they need to scour the halls for nerdy kids who might not otherwise make a team. Didn’t they make a movie or two about this?
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August 29, 2010 at 10:03 am
Anonymous
The parents and their washing machines must have been overjoyed with those white uniforms!
August 29, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Anonymous
AYSO started in the 1960s but really took off in the 1980s. It has a much different philosophy than other youth sporting leagues. But it doesn’t always stop parents from acting like jerks unfortunately.
AYSO’s Six Philosophies
AYSO’s philosophies are living tenets that separate it from other sports organizations. They are Everyone Plays®, Balanced Teams, Open Registration, Positive Coaching, Good Sportsmanship and Player Development.
Everyone Plays®
Our program’s goal is for kids to play soccer so we mandate that every player on every team must play at least 50% of every game. It’s no fun to spend the game on the bench…and that’s no way to learn soccer!
Balanced Teams
Each year we form new teams as evenly balanced as possible because it’s more fun and a better learning experience when teams of similar ability play. It allows for each player to gain the experience of a wide variety of teammates of different skill levels.
Open Registration
Our program is open to all children between 4 and 19 years of age who want to register and play soccer. Interest and enthusiasm are the only criteria for playing. There are no elimination try-outs and nobody gets cut.
Positive Coaching
Encouragement of player effort provides for greater enjoyment for the players and leads to better-skilled and better-motivated players. A coach can be one of the most influential people in a child’s life, so AYSO requires they create a positive experience for every boy and girl.
Good Sportsmanship
We strive to create a positive environment based on mutual respect rather than a win-at-all-costs attitude, and our program is designed to instill good sportsmanship in every facet of AYSO.
Player Development
We believe that all players should be able to develop their soccer skills and knowledge to the best of their abilities, both individually and as members of a team, in order to maximize their enjoyment of the game.
August 29, 2010 at 1:14 pm
Eric Kirk
Yeah, Wikipedia says it started in 1964, the year of my birth. It was definitely not around on the coast side of San Mateo County when I came of age. I remember playing soccer for the first time in 5th grade P.E., and the teacher didn’t really know how to teach us to play. We played U6 “bunchball” basically, only with bigger bodies bunching.
I did make the team in high school, but I would have loved the opportunity the kids have now. I do wonder, particularly after yesterday’s experience, if four isn’t maybe a year too young. Then again, we’re just out there having fun, and at that age it’s really just a chance to wear uniforms and kick a ball around.
August 29, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Unk John
Another advantage of soccer is that you can outfit an entire kid from head to toe for less than the cost of one football helmet.
I had the pleasure of watching Germany play in two different games in the world cup this year in an outside restaurant in Berlin. It was a great deal of fun, especially when Germans were telling me how much American soccer has improved. Most seem to feel that we are becoming a force in the sport. It’s about time.
August 30, 2010 at 8:19 am
Eric Kirk
Well, the more kids who are interested the bigger pool for teams later. The problem is that soccer isn’t the big money maker yet and there is actually cultural resistance to the game. However, you wouldn’t have known it last Saturday in Fortuna – the biggest crowd I’ve seen yet with games going into the late afternoon.
The money is in the big four sports – baseball, football (American), basketball, and hockey, and in the more elite sports like tennis and golf. They are bound to attract our best athletes, and in fact some of the kids I’ve coached over the last three years aren’t playing soccer this year because they’ve reached the youngest age for football. The parents use the soccer league to prep them up for football, getting them into physical shape and used to the concept of playing in uniforms in front of people – and that’s fine with me actually even though Asher’s team lost its star goalie (Aiden Willner – small guy but fearless). They have a taste for it, and maybe they’ll come back to the sport later. Either way, they have the experience.
I think our women’s soccer teams nationally have done well because there aren’t the money-making opportunities in the other sports. The cream of the crop, at least some of it, ends up on the team. AYSO started playing girls teams in the early 70s, and it’s paid off.
In the meantime, I’m finding it one of the more enjoyable events in parenting. I like the crowds at soccer, which seem to select for the kind of parents who will cheer for the other team when they make a good play. I particularly like the games where we play a Fortuna team, because the communities are so estranged from each other and this brings them together. For the first time, I’m on the parents side of the field and can talk with the parents of the other teams where we trade compliments, and for a moment they forget that we’re “dope growing hippies” and we forget that they’re “judgmental rednecks.” And growing over the past few years is a third cultural element in Hispanic participants (one of our players last year commented at how hard it is to “play against Mexicans” and his father reminded him that the play has nothing to do with that, but rather how much they play and practice).
It is the largest organized youth sport in Humboldt County we’re told, and I wonder if soon it won’t be the largest in the country. And that bodes well for future World Cup fortunes, assuming we can get by instant gratification element about the scoring that people like Glenn Beck complain sol loudly about.
August 30, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Anonymous
What’s unsocialist about Football or Baseball? They’re team sports too.
August 30, 2010 at 4:49 pm
Eric Kirk
Well, I just heard that there may not be a varsity football team at South Fork this year, because so many of the players want to play soccer (and that Arcata is having a similar problem). Maybe they need to scour the halls for nerdy kids who might not otherwise make a team. Didn’t they make a movie or two about this?
August 30, 2010 at 6:32 pm
Anonymous
The football story in Arcata is a little more complicated than that. I can’t speak for South Fork.
August 31, 2010 at 8:18 am
Eric Kirk
I heard something about it, but since it involves allegations about particular individuals I didn’t want to post about it until I had more facts.