Coaching kids

I will do a wonderful thing on Saturday afternoon. I will pack my 7-year-old daughter into the car, drive to my local YMCA and sit in a lawn chair as I watch her play soccer.

This isn't just some sappy parent speaking. I'm happy because I don't have to do dick the entire time. I can just sit there and watch her run around the field. I didn't always have it this easy. I actually coached her youth soccer team for a couple of season.

I don't want to sound totally negative about the experience, but it pretty much sucked. Sure, I got to help try and teach my daughter and a bunch of other kids the basics of the sport. I got to meet some pretty cool kids and, thankfully, their well-adjusted parents. I even got a few presents at the end of the season.

But I had to put up with the bullshit politics of you sports, even at the under-six level, and the fact that kids that age just don't learn sports like older kids do.

When she first signed up, I volunteered to coach because I thought I brought a few important things to the table. Even though I have never played organized soccer, I love the sport. I also really enjoy little kids, plus I had pretty good success when I used to coach wrestling.

The difference was that my 11 years of coaching wrestling took place on the high school level, where I was the top assistant for a pretty good school. I coached three kids who won Maryland state titles, and we had at least one kid in the top six of the state for nine straight years.

But working with five and six-year-olds would be totally different than working with teenagers. I figured I could cope pretty easily. At first, I made the transition without much of a problem. I could turn everything into a game. Nobody tried to tell me that some other coach they had taught them a better way to do something, my biggest pet peeve with high school kids.

Little by little, I realized I had gotten in way over my head. I thought I gave clear and simple instructions, but things went right over their little heads. When I pointed to a spot on the field, they stared at me instead of running to where I wanted them.

Worst of all, I couldn't yell at them for any of this. They were just little kids after all, plus their parents all sat on the side of the field for practice. I couldn't even subtly threaten them because they would probably go and tell on me. I never seriously considered doing that, but it did cross my mind.

I yelled a lot when I coached high school kids. We had a really small wrestling room so any raised voice really got the point across. I could accomplish so much with a simple "Hey!" at the right volume. I also had the luxury of calling out individual athletes when they couldn't tell their ass from a hole in the ground. You can't do that when Mom and Dad are sitting a few feet away from you and their pre-schooler.

Not only couldn't I draw on my years of yelling at teenagers, I had also lost the physical edge. I think I loved this the most when I coached wrestling. I didn't have the greatest career on the mats, but I did okay. I wrestled for four years in college and won just about as many matches as I lost. I knew I could probably handle most kids I would coach.

During my first season, I could tell the kids didn't know what to think of me. I had replaced an assistant who they had a ton of respect for. He couldn't coach anymore because of work responsibilities. After a couple of practices, I knew I had to gain their respect, so I picked the kid they thought was the toughest kid on the team to show off a technique.

Long story short, I made sure to knock him clear on his ass to prove a point. Sure, I risked them thinking I was too cocky, but things worked out pretty well from then on out. The problem is, I would have ended up in the pokey if I tried to hip check a five-year-old to prove a point.

I had to deal with all of that on top of the fact that the "random" selection for teams gave me a group that provided some interesting "challenges." Don't get me wrong, they were a fun bunch of kids, but we didn't win many games. Or score many goals. Or do much of anything positive. The first season was okay, but the second season just absolutely blew.

So we signed my kid up for a different league in town (mainly because the schedule fit our weekends much better), and I didn't say a word about coaching. Now I try to give her little tips without undermining the coach as I sit on the sidelines and count my blessings. All I have to do is bring a snack one week. That's a deal I can't refuse.

Brian Shea is probably enjoying a beer in his basement right now. You can contact him at columns@regularguycolumn.com.