Just play

It continues to blow my mind, during this recreational indoor season, many coaches are still focused on seeing how many points they can put up.  So much so, they are asking the ref what the real score was at the end of the game because the facility where we play only has the score on the board up to a plus five advantage.

If you have to ask what the score was because of this, it is obvious your team won.  On a field in which U8 players can throw the ball past midfield and players through U16 play on, it's no surprise the ball can go in a lot because of a good amount of boom ball and nine foot high goals.

Regardless of our teams' goose egg in the win column, it is clear every time we are on the field, our kids are having more fun.  They are joking around, kidding each other when a ball goes in off of their own teammate, and chatting it up on the bench because they know, and the expectation was set, that they are there just to play.

Sure I have things to teach as they go along to spark some of their awareness of the game and sure I give them challenges to see how well they can succeed in making them work in a game situation, but when it comes down to it, they never go away with their heads down and are always looking forward to playing again.  Even my daughter who is on the very competitive side wanted to get out there this weekend despite the snow and ice, which shut down the facility.

The greatest reason for this is, while the scoreboard indicates dominance on points, our girls are still getting dominance in possession.  Teams don't let up on us because they always believe we are in the game and I bet sometimes they or their coaches are looking at us and thinking, "What's wrong with them? Why are they still working so hard?  There's no way they'll catch up" and I say to this, "No, they are playing hard because that's what kids do when they are having fun."