Defining Success

If you measured success by the score, Noah's house team had a rough go of it today. I really don't keep track of scores, but it doesn't take a student of the game to observe that it was a pretty lopsided game, particularly the first half when one of our better field players was in goal -- facing an onslaught -- and two of our other more experienced players weren't there.

But my definition of success, I think the team had a great day. Even when the score was the most lopsided, they worked hard -- probably even harder  (Satisfying rule #1: Play Hard) and outplayed their opponents in the second half. And because we only had one sub, everyone got a lot of playing time and probably more touches on the ball than they would when our full team was there.

More importantly, regardless of the score, no one was griping at each other or pointing fingers and assigning blame. (See rule #2: Play Fair.) In fact, if we had any problem today it was some of the players taking too much responsibility for things that were beyond their control.

Equally importantly: when I ran into some parents later in the day, they offered up how much fun their son was having on the team. (See rule #4.)  And most of them even listened to their coach today (rule #3) Okay, we still have to work on that, but they are 9 and 10-year-olds after all.

I think their coach (that would be me) has to work on less direction from the sideline. It's easy to be quiet when you have 5 out of 6 kids in position and knowing where to go and you're scoring goals at will. But when you have only 2 of them in the right position most of the time and watching your goalie take volleys off his chest, it's harder. Still, one of my goals is to coach when they're not playing and encourage while they are playing. It's a work in progress.

--michael