Sunday, January 30, 2011

A fight, A Stabbing, Two Wins, and Lots of Laughs Later.

Yup thats how I describe our soccer season.  No it wasn't that bad.  Yes all that stuff happened, but it may sound a BIT dramatic.  Point being, the season is OVER!!!

Just like my classroom, we look for improvement around every corner, and I wasn't disappointed.  As a whole, we won more games than last year (two this year, zero last year).  We scored more goals than last year (20 this year, 1 last year).  Throughout the season, the score differential decreased even when we lost. For example, we lost to Clinton 10 to 0 via the slaughter rule.  A week and half later we played them again and we lost 5 to 0!!! If that isn't improvement, I don't know what is! haha.

The score aside, our ability to work together and our ability to control our anger greatly improved as well!  If  you ask me, this accomplishment far out weighs the improvement in scores.  I am not sure you really understand the mess that was the girls soccer team at the end of October.  The backtalk. The disrespect.  The fights with each other on the field.  It was down right embarrassing!!  But by January, we were actually laughing at practice and on the bus rides home because we weren't arguing.

So what are my thoughts about soccer, coaching, etc. in the delta?
1.  It is a MAJOR time commitment.  I mean I understood that, but I did this alone.  I had no assistant coaches.  Turns out thats a big deal.  Assistants actually do do a lot!  Ha.  I didn't get home till 7pm on a good night then I had to get ready for school the next day and still get to bed...ugh.  And lets not talk about how my Friday nights and Saturdays until 4 or 5pm were taken for games.  Yes I had to give up a lot, but I am not going to lie, there were its benefits...
2.  The good things: I always had an excuse to not go to faculty meetings :)  I got to leave school early for away games!!  The girls were pretty awesome.  They made me pretty angry, but I also laughed a lot.  And sometimes, after really long days, it was nice to be with kids who wanted to be there and wanted to learn.
3.  Coaching is kind of hard!  It may be because I played rugby for the past four years.  Or it may be because the girls didn't know anything and I was teaching them the basics.  Either way,  it was a constant struggle.  It was hard to break it down that much.  It was frustrating that after working an entire season on kicking with the shoelaces, we still had girls shooting with their toes!!  This was my first coaching experience though.  There was a lot I learned.  I did an okay job, but give me the job again next year and I will be ten times better!
4.  The issues I see in the classroom were the same issues I saw on the soccer field.   Yes the girls wanted to be there but they were still disrespectful.  They still preferred to goof off.  They still wanted to talk through everything I said.  They still wanted to complain when I asked them to run TWO laps.  Again, worse of all, was they anger management issues.  I was constantly fighting the  "She pushed me, so I am goin' push her!" thoughts.  EVEN THOUGH IT WAS A SPORT.  I did my best but the girls could not understand that you arent suppose to just shove back.  And thats how we got into a fight or two throughout the season...
5.  Soccer should never be a winter sport.  Come on Mississippi, we all know that it does actually get cold here.  No hiding it.  Want proof?  Ask my aching toes and fingers.  I didn't get feeling back in them until last week.

So will I do it again? In a heartbeat.  Like I said,  a lot of the hiccups I blame on it being my first time coaching.