How to Ruin A Perfectly Beautiful Sport

At the tournament we're at I started chatting with a coach who has one of the best boys teams in the country at one of the upper age levels. His team has joined a new "super league" for the top 20 teams in the country. Therewith, he and his team fly all over the country playing soccer. These are 16 and 17-year-old kids, mind you.

I asked him what he thought of that and he said that the move in this direction was pricing kids out of the sport. We both agreed that soccer was the simplest of games. All you need are two kids and something round - it doesn't even have to be a ball. In poor areas, kids are known to create their own soccer ball out of rolled up newspaper fixed together with tape. There are as many variations as you can think of. Numbers of players, shape and size of the playing "field", choices in goal, number and postioning of field players. Soccer is a highly mutable sport that can be played just about anywhere and by anyone.

So, here in America, in the name of developing the very best youth players as possible, we are creating a "premier" soccer system that focuses on excluding the vast majority of players by making it very expensive and requiring huge amounts of time investment by parents in transportation and travel.

As the coach and I talked about this we both noted that some of the best teams we see are stocked with hispanic kids. Most of them are not from wealthy areas. But these kids grow up in an environment steeped in futbol. They don't have to be driven to the sports fields to practice, it is all around them. In their backyards. At school. Their dads, uncles, older brothers all play.

In the area where I live, after the youth soccer teams leave the field (and after my over-40 team drags its collective butt from the pitch), the hispanic players descend en masse to the field. Sometimes there are as many as 50 or 60, sometimes a handful (but usually a larger number). Sometimes they practice shooting on each other, with players taking turns at goal. Usually, they engage in free-flowing scrimmage games without shooting, in which the goal is posession and passing. These games can be 4 v 4 or 20 v 20, it just depends on who is there.

The skills these players show are pretty impressive. They build their knowledge of the game and their vast inventory of skills by repeated scrimmages. There are no paid coaches, no English trainers who used to play League 2 ball in the old country. It's just a mix of ages, older players passing down their skills and knowledge to the younger players. And that's one of the things that's so impressive. There's no separation based on age. The groups make room for the younger kids and the adults can be seen giving tips and suggestions to the younger players.

I imagine this is why some of the poorest countries in the world produce incredible talents like Ronaldinho or Kaka. I suspect it's not because they price the poorest kids out of the game.

Something really stinks in the world of American youth soccer.

The Know Nothing Parents

In the last century, the Know Nothing Movement was a political movement that arose briefly to combat the influence of Irish Catholic immigrants. The term arose from the secrecy of the movement. When asked about it, members were supposed to respond, "I know nothing." Similarities to Sergeant Schultz of TV's Hogan's Heroes are entirely accidental.

In somewhat the same vein, the Know Nothing Soccer Parent resists any knowledge of the basic rules and strategy of the game we call football. What's more, they have no interest in ever educating themselves about silly things like rules and fundamentals. They are on the sideline to yell. Something. Loudly.

At one tournament in the not too distant past I got a chance to observe a small herd of KNSPs, middle-aged dads who had probably never experienced soccer until their DDs started to play. They had wanted sons, so they could have a boy play real football, but they were making do as best they could.

One of their team's players kicked the ball so that it struck an opponents arm. "Hand ball! Hand ball, ref!"

The ref rightly ruled that it was ball to hand, and had no significant influence on the control of the ball, so he let it go. The dads started yelling and then grumbling amongst themselves about the ref's bias against their team in not giving them the hand ball call that was rightfully theirs.

Straight up shoulder-to-shoulder challenges were also fair game. "They're pushing our girls!" The dads became indignant about the ref's ignoring these vicious, aggressive (but, of course, entirely legal, by the rules of the game) challenges.

But what really set them off were the slide tackles. One girl in particular from the opposing team had excellent technique. When the KNSPs team was mounting an attack, she executed a perfect slide tackle, taking the ball in its entirety away from the attacker, who then fell down under the challenge.

The sideline exploded. That had to be a foul! Our girl's on the ground! The ref signaled "play on" and this gesture, misunderstood by the men, added insult to injury. That girl took our player down and you signal play on, ignoring our cries for justice!

The men had not even finished their grumbling when a repeat situation occurred, different attacker, same slide tackler, but this one was in the box. When the girl went down, they leapt up in protest again. But this time they were certain that their team deserved a penalty kick.

Again, the tackler got all ball and the ref waved "play on." The dads screamed and howled in protest. They were livid. Finally, the tackler turned to them in disgust (this is a 12-year-old girl) and yells back at them, "It's a legal challenge! I got all ball."

I admired the young lady for standing up for herself and attempting to educate the ignorant. However, she could've brought chalk and a chalkboard and it would've done little good. These men were simply unwilling (and perhaps unable) to understand the concept of a legal tackle centered on defending the ball, and the player's body hitting the ground as a consequent action of the ball tackle.

Another common example of the KNSP, are the parents who believe the game of football to be centered around the art of the long, hard kick upfield, downfield, or out of bounds. These are the parents who yell enthusiastically every time their little Mia smacks the ball long, regardless of whether it results in anything positive for the team. For these KNSPs, the game of football is less a strategic team sport than it is a quasi-track and field event, in which 11 players attempt to set personal distance records in the run and kick competition.

...and nothing you can tell them will change their minds.

CSP Types - The One Way Parent

Parents often focus on refs and the injustices they do to their little Tiffany or Chip. Refs are almost universally adjudged to blow the whistle (or sit on it) to the other team's advantage.
There's a special type of CSP that makes this claim at the same time they commit the very same sin.

The One-Way Soccer Parent (also known as the See No Evil Soccer Parent) only sees the fouls committed against their kid and their kid's team. Their kid, however, could pull a knife and shank an opposing player and the OWSP would cheer their progeny on, yelling things like, "That's a tackle!" and "Yeah, way to stick in!" If the ref calls a foul, the OWSP will ignore the knife sticking out of the opponent's back and begin working the ref.

"Let 'em play, ref."

"Call it both ways!"

The problem (or that is, one of the problems) with the OWSP is that their partisanship is blind to the sport of football, which is, at its core, a contact sport. People use their body to gain and keep control of the ball. Fouls occur as part of the game, and its really only the cheap shot or dangerous play that merits mention from the sideline. You only embarrass your kid when you complain about the run of the mill physical contact, like the mommy who won't let her son play in the snowball fight because he might get his eye put out. It's football. If you don't want them to have contact with the opponents, sign her up for volleyball where they keep both sides separated.

World Record in the Bottle Smash

Also at the LPTs' first weekend in Pasco, I witnessed the world record setting bottle smash by one aggrieved soccer parent. This was in a game going on at the field next to us. I don't know too much about what precipitated the action, but I had begun to hear quite a bit of bitching and moaning about the reffing in the game. It built up and then finally, erupted into howls of protest as someone's Little Mia got clattered about without a whistle. I turned to see what was happening and witnessed the man directly behind me wind up his arm, windmill it above his head and throw down with all the mighty righteous indignation a soccer match deserves, his plastic water bottle.

Now, maybe it was the amount of water remaining in the bottle (it appeared to be full). Or maybe it was the superhuman strength this man possessed, whether natural, or artificially enhanced by the crimes of the referee, but that water bottle bounced at least 14 feet in the air.

Sadly, it seemed that the man who set the record, was too angry to appreciate his feat, as he stormed up the sidelines, leaving the area even before the bottle returned back to the surly bonds of the Earth.

I don't know what ultimately happened in that soccer game, but I left the field that evening knowing that I had witnessed a true athletic achievement of historic proportions.

The Crazy Wii Dad

There's nothing like a high stakes tournament to bring out the CRAZY in CSPs. And last week's Washington League Placement Tournament in Pasco, Washington was no exception. My favorite is a man I will call Crazy Wii Dad.

I first noticed CWD while standing off to the side of a game, chatting with a fellow team parent, while waiting for the coaches to arrive prior to our team's warm-up. An older girl's game was going on 30 feet away from us. I hadn't paid too much attention to the game, other than to note the clubs involved.

That changed, however, as my conversation with my fellow parent was disrupted by the sounds, nay, call them shrieks - of a male on the sideline:

C'mon, ref! Blow the whistle. She's all over her back. Geezuz!

I look over and girls are getting themselves up from the sort of
collision that often occurs throughout soccer games. He then repeated the accusation, as both clarification and statement of how his team was being victimized.

Geez. Come on, ref. She was all over her back!! You gotta blow that whistle.

This was yelled so loud, the ref looked over at the man, shook his head 'no' and went back to the game.

As soon as the game re-started, the man starts yelling again. My fellow soccer parent and I are transfixed by this CSP.

"Come on!" - this appears to be his favorite phrases. "Let's go, girls." "Yeah!"

He screams out something with every move, every dribble, every tackle. But he's not yelling this as you or I might yell encouragement at a soccer
game. He's screaming with feverish intensity, as if the outcome of the
match depends on the volume and conviction of his voice. There is a distinct Lord of the Flies sound to his voice, as if he is just one goal or one bad call away from descending into violent, tribalistic behavior.

He is dressed in khaki shorts and a polo shirt. A baseball cap obscures his gray hair and he has a full, gray beard. He is in his 50s I'd estimate and moderate build, with the sort of suggestion of modest fitness golfers often have.


As I watch him scream, he moves his body along with the game, as if he is playing a Wii version of the match that's taking place on the field, controlling player movements and kicks with his body. On a shot toward goal, he makes a flaccid little half kick, that from where I'm standing, looks absolutely ridiculous. This comes with another, "Yeah!! That's it!"

The team fails to score, though, and as the play moved back toward his area of the field, he backpedals, then he does a little move that I've never seen before, and attacks, screaming all the while.

I find myself watching this crazed dad instead of the game. It is both amusing and pathetic at the same time.

I wonder who is this guy? What does he do for a living? Does he act like a jackass in other phases of his life? At work? At PTA meetings?

I don't ask myself whether he's ever played soccer. It's clear he hasn't. It's also clear that everyone else associated with his daughter's team has adjusted to him and his antics. He is alone on the sideline. Coaches, players, other parents, there is no one within 20 yards of him.