Success

How do you measure success? The amount of money in your bank account? Or how many cars you have in the garage? Is it the number of Facebook friends you have? Or how many contacts you have in your phone?

Success comes in many different forms. In sports that form is: Wins and Losses, Victories and Defeats.

1 year ago me and two of my good friends took on what seemed like a monumental challenge, coaching a completely defeated soccer team. The team we were coaching would be playing in the a U-12 league, basically a bunch of 7th graders, with a few 6th graders and 5th thrown in. During our first practice, I was talking with one of our players and I asked him how they played up until that season. He told me they had scored one goal last season and have never won and game "and I suck."

Up to that spring the team had no success. The only thing they accomplished was not quitting the sport all together, which as an athlete means almost nothing. We had two weeks before our first game, and as coaches we just wanted to get through that season and into the summer where we could really work with them. In those weeks we drilled the technical aspect of the game into them as much as we could. In our minds, we might not win a single game, but maybe we can keep them from getting blown out and heck score a couple goals. The season is 8 games, and we worked with them for about the same number of weeks. That season they won a single game, but they had come miles from when we got them.

Summer came and went we mostly scrimmaged with them, then that fall me and another coach went off to college leaving them with a coach who, given his back ground in soccer would well lets just say they would be the best conditioned team in the league, but if you knew the coach he wouldn't settle for anything less than a perfect season.....sadly that was not the case. That fall the boys won 3 or 4 games which for them was great.

Finally spring came, college was over, the gang was back. Now with a mostly older team we pushed them right to the edge, really trying to prepare them for what the high school team would be like. We saw in those kids what some of them didn't, and we challenge them to win the league (what coaches don't). Their response to us was yeah right, and after dropping the first game it looked grim. After a week, we played the same team and beat them thus putting it on them. We told them they were in charge of their own destiny that season, they just gotta win. The next game we played one of the softer teams and beat them 3-0. The turning point was when they played the team on top of the league and beat them 4-0, the next day we one 10-1. In the second game of the weekend they probably scored more goals then in there past 5 seasons combined. They tied and won they next two games. Leaving it up to our final opponent to set the stage for a championship match and they didn't disappoint.

We needed the win in order to lock it up. As coaches we wanted nothing more for them, as players they were hungry for it. The game was one that we had to reschedule from earlier in the season. So our boys hadn't played a game in almost a month, which was apparent early on in the game. We were flat, the other team did what they want when they wanted. I shared a look with one of my coaches and we both thought, this is going to get out of hand real fast. There was nothing we could do, but watch and hope. Couldn't have been more than two minutes later, and they had scored a remarkable goal, putting us down one. It was only one goal but it felt like they had just a hit a walk off home run to end the game. After a short spur of  just kickin it back and forth, started the quickest momentum switch I have ever seen and it came on a missed shot from one of the better players. To fully understand just how remarkable this switch was, one must know that a lot of these kids would hang there head for a having a bad touch. Our first goal that evening came from the player who I quoted above saying "I suck." He was on the sideline and asked me how to beat a team who just kicks it out of bounds. I told him "keep the ball close," he told me he couldn't so I told him "then keep them away from the ball." Why that one got through I'll never know. He finished the game with 2 goals and an assist. We won the game 5-1.

In the post game talk I realized how much more then a game it was. Sure the only thing going through their mind was "We are champs!!!!" but as I looked at them I saw how much these kids had grown sure a lot of them were literally growing, but ever kid out there grew mentally and matured so much in a year and half. And I was honored just to be a part of that...


Congrats to the 2011 CASL U 14 Blue Champs, yall earned it.