What a difference a week makes. From worst to first. Well, not quite but we did put the hurt on the first place team in our league and that always feels good. If you remember last week (which I'm sure the three of you do) I lamented on the inability of my U6 Team to win a game and the complete loss of form by my dominating U3 Team. *side note: the terms dominating U3 Team shows the exact level of focus I demand from small children.
Oh how my faith in humanity has been reborn! First up was Alice and the mighty Orange Alligators. I have three goal scoring machines on my team and they were all ready to go. One lingering question from last week was answered by the Grandmother of one boy. This kid is going to be a stud. He knows how to dribble, shoot, pass, and even has one move (step-over) but last week looked actually lost on the field. At one point I thought he might cry and that is not his M.O. at all. His Grandmother, coincidentally named Alice, said that he didn't want to play the pink team anymore and when she asked him why he said because they are girls. A little boy who doesn't want to play with girls and is already developing a complex and coping issues. Sounds like the story of my life. Lucky for us this team was in gray uniforms and was mostly boys. We seriously may have scored 15 goals.
Ruby played a game on Saturday and Sunday. For the previous five games, I asked if everyone wanted to have fun, encourage them to play hard, and tried to get them excited to play. This time I decided to use a motivational tactic that was developed by the Mayans, brought up north by the Spanish and perfected by me. I asked them if they wanted to win.
"Do you really want to win this game?" I asked the team.
"YESSSSSSSSSSSS," they screamed at me.
"Well then you have to play hard the whole time and score more goals then them," I said. "Can you do that?"
"YESSSSSSSSSSS," they scream again.
My message boiled down to this. Run after every ball, kick the ball in their goal more than they kick it in ours, and we will win. This simple message resulted in a 7-6 win on Saturday and a 4-3 comeback win on Sunday. Their faces absolutely lit up when, after each game, they asked me if they won and I said yes.
I do find some hilarity in the fact that they act like they really want to win but keeping score requires too much concentration. I felt a slight twinge of sadness though in what it took to win. As much as I don't think it's all that important for them to win at this age, the only way to get them motivated to play hard the whole time was to stoke their competitive juices. I'm not naive, I understand that winning and competition are part of who we are as people and everyone, everyone likes to win it also provides the opportunity to make them deal with losing. The lessons learned from losing are even more powerful than what we learn from winning but like I always told my coaches when they told me that.
"You ask them what losing taught them and I will just stick to beating them."
Oh how my faith in humanity has been reborn! First up was Alice and the mighty Orange Alligators. I have three goal scoring machines on my team and they were all ready to go. One lingering question from last week was answered by the Grandmother of one boy. This kid is going to be a stud. He knows how to dribble, shoot, pass, and even has one move (step-over) but last week looked actually lost on the field. At one point I thought he might cry and that is not his M.O. at all. His Grandmother, coincidentally named Alice, said that he didn't want to play the pink team anymore and when she asked him why he said because they are girls. A little boy who doesn't want to play with girls and is already developing a complex and coping issues. Sounds like the story of my life. Lucky for us this team was in gray uniforms and was mostly boys. We seriously may have scored 15 goals.
Ruby played a game on Saturday and Sunday. For the previous five games, I asked if everyone wanted to have fun, encourage them to play hard, and tried to get them excited to play. This time I decided to use a motivational tactic that was developed by the Mayans, brought up north by the Spanish and perfected by me. I asked them if they wanted to win.
"Do you really want to win this game?" I asked the team.
"YESSSSSSSSSSSS," they screamed at me.
"Well then you have to play hard the whole time and score more goals then them," I said. "Can you do that?"
"YESSSSSSSSSSS," they scream again.
My message boiled down to this. Run after every ball, kick the ball in their goal more than they kick it in ours, and we will win. This simple message resulted in a 7-6 win on Saturday and a 4-3 comeback win on Sunday. Their faces absolutely lit up when, after each game, they asked me if they won and I said yes.
I do find some hilarity in the fact that they act like they really want to win but keeping score requires too much concentration. I felt a slight twinge of sadness though in what it took to win. As much as I don't think it's all that important for them to win at this age, the only way to get them motivated to play hard the whole time was to stoke their competitive juices. I'm not naive, I understand that winning and competition are part of who we are as people and everyone, everyone likes to win it also provides the opportunity to make them deal with losing. The lessons learned from losing are even more powerful than what we learn from winning but like I always told my coaches when they told me that.
"You ask them what losing taught them and I will just stick to beating them."
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