CSotD: What makes Petey run?
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In the current Cul de Sac arc, Petey succumbs to peer pressure and agrees to sign up for soccer, poor lad. Not only does this jolt our little Oblomov out of his bed, but it puts him squarely in the sunshine, among grass and peers.
No good can come of this.
When my boys were boys, I was their rec league soccer coach. More specifically, I was their SOCSY coach, which stood for "Soccer Organization for Colorado Springs Youth," a group that took soccer so seriously that we coaches had to petition for a rule change that would allow free substitution rather than the traditional baseball-like rule that, once out, you couldn't go back in. That's nice for FIFA, but it's not very practical for teaching the sport.
Coaching SOCSY was fun in the fall season, because the kids who turned out were passionate little soccer players and, while they weren't all accomplished athletes, they were there for soccer and would do whatever you asked as long as you put them in the game.
In the spring, however, SOCSY was subcontracted to the city's Parks & Rec Department, which distributed a brochure of activities in the newspaper, among which soccer was listed. And it became very apparent to coaches that parents were sitting their kids down with the brochure and saying, "What about soccer? You like soccer, don't you? Or would you rather sign up for nature hikes? A nice nature hike every Tuesday and Thursday would be fun, don't you think? Come on, now, you decide! What are you going to choose?"
And every spring, faced with all the Petey Otterloops who would had been dragooned into signing up and who rather be somewhere, anywhere but there, I'd swear that I was never going to coach in the spring again, that I would only coach in the fall. But somehow, the next spring, there I'd be again.
At least we didn't hand out trophies or put their names on their jerseys. I'm sure I'd have spelled them wrong.
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