No hooliganism, just decades of memories
Longtime Philly grade-school soccer coach hangs up his whistle.
IT'S TIME to put the hooligan label in the discard pile in the vast recesses of my co-worker's sarcastic brain. He has been using that moniker in jest for close to three decades to describe the grade-school soccer players I coach.
Now that I'm finally hanging up the broken whistle, it must be stressed that there has never been evidence of hooliganism among those fine, young seventh- and eighth-grade boys from St. Martha school in Northeast Philadelphia.
The kids have always been respectful, and let's say unique.
Weapons? They brought paintball guns to practice once, but checked them at the tree and graciously promised to use them later only on inanimate objects. Dart gun? A homemade one on unsanctioned show-and-tell day. Mooning? Once to the shocking dismay of two moms from the opposing team. Fights? The biggest one involved spectators, an ex-husband and current boyfriend.
Once a kid brought what he called his inner deer to the game, which would have been fine if he was more Dasher than Bambi and wasn't doing the antler dance instead of charging the net.
I had a kid who knew the difference between what a snake or a pigeon does after a big meal. That helped in field maintenance. One tried to bribe me to get back in the game: "Does the name Mr. Lincoln do anything for you?"
"You suck," said a goalie to the ref who made sure our backup goalie could lose in overtime.
One practice T-shirt read "Not guilty." A plea, no doubt.
"Bob," said one player, when asked his name by an opposing parent accusing him of an obscene gesture. "Marley," said Chris, when asked his last name.
One Halloween practice, a player arrived with thin, black material covering his entire face. Get in goal, kid.
Two subs would have gone into one game if they weren't in mid-french fries with ketchup on their cheeks. Speaking of food, I'll still be coaching track, where a girl once showed up on the first day of practice and asked whether she could go to Dunkin' Donuts before she started.
Ah, doughnuts, the snack food of champions.