Nicknames

What is it with these politically correct thought police who want us to stop using nicknames for all kids on the team? Is this what it has come to as the first decade of the new millennium shudders to an end? When little ‘Psycho’ gets back from his anger-management classes we can’t welcome him in the normal manner? When ‘Suck Up’ carries the coach’s bag back to his car again we all have to say “thank you Andrew?” I can’t even call Mary’s kid ‘The Judge’ any more even though he spends all that time on the bench?

Well I’m not going to be told by some hyper-sensitive, NPR listening, liberal tree hugger what I can and can’t do! Our starting center-back will always be ‘A.D.D.’ as far as I’m concerned even though he has so much Ritalin in him I swear he rattles as he runs. ‘Stoner Boy’ has been my name of choice for the addict’s kid for as long as I can remember and ‘Charity’ is my constant reminder to the scholarship kid of how lucky he is to be on the team. Plus, I’m pretty sure that the Hispanic kid with the fancy foot skills likes me calling him ‘Juan on Juan’ even though his name is really Peter.

Even our coach enters into the spirit of things and answers to a variety of names. Sally calls him ‘Chewbacca’ because she can’t understand a word the crazy foreigner says. Tim refers to him as ‘IRS’ which is something to do with him always wanting to be paid in cash, and I call him ‘Big Guy’ which I realize you won’t understand because he’s only 5’ 2”, but I know him a little better than the rest of you.

So let’s kick back at these fools by taking it to the next level and starting to use nicknames for the crazy parents too! Now that George is back from rehab we can call him ‘Needles’ again and his wife can be ‘Desperado’. The team manager should be called ‘Sticky Fingers’ for the deft way she manages the money, while the fat goalie’s dad should be ‘Dr. Atkins’. But if that greasy lecherous father of our striker ogles down my top one more time and calls me ‘Twin Peaks’ again I swear I’m going to kick him in the size fives, because that is just totally insensitive!

By The Time I Got To Phoenix

So with his real dad being a no-show, it fell to me to take the boy to the Phoenix Showcase for the start of his second year in the hair-brained Development Academy program. I’m not a big fan of this program as you know, and I’m a little bit disappointed that he has chosen to focus on a girl’s sport, but I suppose I have to give him some encouragement. I just don’t get all this ‘play and train like the pros’ business that they’ve got going on. Only one game per day, three-to-one training to game ratio, mandatory rest periods, scientific testing, WTF?! Why can’t we just drive these kids into the ground the way we do with real soccer on the girl’s side?

Anyway, this year’s team is made up of some carry-overs from last year’s roster, some kids from the state’s other academy club, a few from the club that won the state cup, as many of the hot-shots from all the other clubs that we could pick up, and one kid who came through the ranks at our own club. I suppose it is heartening to see all these players coming to the club to be part of our long tradition of developing the best players in the state.

One of the highlights of the showcase was supposed to be the evening games featuring the US U17 MNT playing a round robin series of games against Portugal, The Netherlands and Brazil. I guess it’s nice of us to help bring the game to these developing countries.

However, I was very disappointed with our US roster. A kid from Michigan, one from Indiana, one from Illinois, a bunch from California! In fact the roster was made up of kids from all over the country! What’s the deal? Looks to me like the coach is just one great big RECRUITER! Typical of a coach who doesn’t know anything about developing his own players! That’s the sort of sharp practice poaching that would get him in a lot of trouble if he tried to pull those stunts in the Northern Central Michigan Premier Development Super Olympic Select League. We have a fine committee of distinguished self-important non-entities who would slap that sort of behavior down in a minute. So you better get with it Mr US Soccer! This was the DEVELOPMENT Academy Showcase, remember?

Aboutface Book

Like most concerned parents I’m always on the look out for good solid advice on how to raise our kids in this scary modern world. I make a point of regularly watching Dr. Phil and Jerry Springer for the sort of positive role models we all need in this day and age. We soccer parents are in a particularly vulnerable position because, without a background in the game ourselves, we have to hand our kids over to these slippery foreign coaches. Very few of these randy ratbags I’ve slept with over the years seem to adhere to my high standards of integrity, morality and modesty. So, as the mother of a developing teenage girl, I have to look out for my kid. I’m therefore very glad to hear about the publication of a new tome on how the modern teen communicates. Of course, I didn’t have the time to actually read this Aboutface book, but I did scan over the sensational headlines in a synopsis by one of the reputable journalists on the Notional Inquirer at the supermarket checkout the other day.

It seems we should be looking out for coaches who chose to speak to the kids. Apparently these so-called conversations are un-attributable and highly deniable. In order to avoid getting into a ‘he said/she said’ type of situation we should be encouraging our kids to communicate with their coach in a written format which is recorded and easily reviewed.

Not that this absolves us of any responsibility to get some background on the coach we are handing our precious kids and, more importantly, our hard earned cash to. The book therefore suggests that we get onto the coaches friend list on his social networking site to see if he’s the kind of person we want our kids to be with. I have to say there are a couple of coaches at our club who won’t be getting anywhere near my daughter although in the interests of being inclusive I’ve added them to my own account.

So, I’m doing the right thing and having my daughter communicate with the coach via text message, having her befriend him on Facebook, and asking him to stop talking to her. Now the best part is that since I pay her cell phone bill, and I pay for her internet service, the messages all belong to me and I can review them as I see fit. Our former mayor here in Detroit and his erstwhile paramour know all about who owns text messages!

But I was telling all this to my own crazy dingbat mother and she gets it into her head that reading your kid’s texts and emails is the modern equivalent of reading her diary! WTF! She’s ranting on about how some parents get the medium mixed up with the message, and how if we’ve raised our kids right they’ll know what is and isn’t appropriate. She seems to think I have some responsibility, and has this nutty notion that we can give the kids some space to live and grow safe in the knowledge that if anyone does actually step over the line then text and Facebook gives us the solid documentation that spoken words don’t! That’s the sort of wacko thinking that demonstrates just how out of touch the older generation really is.

The Continental Disease

I think we might be exposing our soccer playing kids to a little bit of a bad influence by directing them to watch the thrills, spills and skills of the English Premier League. Although the EPL might well be the best domestic soccer league in the world I think a little bit of the old British Bulldog spirit has gotten lost of late, and its been replaced by a bad dose of the 'continental disease'. All these European superstars might well be bringing their fancy skills to the league but they are also bringing their ability to flop in the box at every opportunity.

Well listen up Johnny Foreigner! English gentlemen don't play the game like that!

Fortunately those fine referees are on the case of these slippery continental cheats - as can be seen by the yellow cards issued to Monsieur Rooney and Herr Gerrard these past two weekends.

Landon Donovan Goes To Everton!

I hear that David Beckham is working with one of those journalists who specializes in working non-stories up into sensational blockbusters with a view to questioning Donovan's committment to the MLS. Landon himself is saving up to buy the Everton first team their Christmas dinner, less he be considered a tight wad. Meanwhile, Bruce Arena reportedly walked into training this morning, held up the captain's armband and asked, "Ok, who wants to try this on now?"

Alphabet Soup, Anyone?

My daughter was asking who her cousin plays for out in Washington state. So I explained that she plays for ECFC of the SYSA but they’ll soon be the SU unless her attorney invokes the WSYSA to keep them independent in the PDL as the PDLC wants them to, but that depends on whether she makes the ODP which is really now the RTC feeder program for either the SSFC or the USYSA depending on whether the kids have any balls or not. I could see she was confused so I explained that SYSA (or SU) is one of six SA’s in District 1 of WSYSA which is, of course, in Region IV of USYSA. So then my little angel says “No mom, I just wanted to know if she’s on the blue team or the red team”. Oh, if only it were that simple!

Pay To Play!

I really don’t know why everyone is getting their thongs in a bunch over this so-called economic crisis. Last night I was reclining with the pool boy in my late husband’s leather laz-e-boy, sipping a cocktail that the maid had brought me, and surfing through the HD channels on our 96” flat screen when I stumbled upon those self-righteous dingbats on HBO’s “Real Sports” show. To start with there was a nice encouraging article, that my nancy-boy son ought to have watched, about how our real American young men get back into a proper sporting endeavor within just a few minutes of taking a good old fashioned concussive hit – way to go gridiron boys! That’s the spirit!

However, it was all downhill from there on. The next item was about some bunch of hover mothers down in Ohio who want to increase my taxes to keep their high school sports programs running! What is it with these people? Don’t they know that REDUCING taxes is as American as Friday night football? Get outa here! I can solve all you pinko commie girl’s problems with just one little phrase – Pay-To-Play!

Let’s look at the benefits of Pay-To-Play in high school sports:

1 – No riff-raff! School sports don’t allow failing kids, and they don’t allow ill-disciplined kids, so why do we allow poor kids? We have standards to uphold and we don’t want any badly dressed kids rolling up to the games in their clapped out Hondas and putting on their Walmart cleats! I don’t care how frickin’ good you are.

2 – More coaching responsibility. If I hand over the hard earned interest on my father’s investments to the team then I have every right to expect to see my kid on the field. That should make sure the coach is responsible for getting him ready to play. Don’t give me any of that “not good enough” BS – I’ve paid you good money to make him good enough. And as for your stupid coach’s discipline of ‘no-practice, no-play’, well how about my new version for you; ‘no play, no pay’!

3 – Reduced roster sizes. Back when I was in high school only the very best athletes made the varsity roster. These days kids wander around with more letters than Vennegor Of Hesselink has on the back of his shirt. With Pay-To-Play, not only can my kid get the coaching attention he needs but our varsity athletes can walk around the school getting the proper respect their parent’s income deserves.

So roll on economic downturn I say! The only thing I’m not sure about is the name. “Pay-to-Play” doesn’t quite have the ring to it. How about we call it Club, or Select, or Travel, or……

What Is It With Referees These Days?

Jeez! Where in the name of all that is expensive do you find a decent referee these days? That buffoon we had last weekend was even worse than the blind donkey we had in the semi-final of the Body Armour tournament up in Flint, MI. She was so bad we had to start singing “Fat Bottomed Girls” at her just to cheer ourselves up. Her little balding bespectacled AR got all bent out of shape just because someone called him “Gandhi”, and I swear the kid running the line on the far side had to change his diaper at half time because he was so scared of our center half’s dad. Then the little rat has the temerity to throw down his flag and storm off in a huff just because Big Eddie started to help him with the offside calls! Kids these days get their money too easily if they can pass up $20 just for running up and down a field for an hour or so. The worst of it is that I think one of our parents is friendly with the ref because he shouted “Hey, I know where you live!” just after she blew that offside call that cost us the game. I did see him following her out to the parking lot afterwards although she seemed to be in a bit of a rush to get going.

So I thought I’d seen it all until we came up against this Uber Psycho last weekend. I hadn’t seem him do any of our games before but some of our parents seemed to know him quite well by virtue of the fact that they reminded him he was a short-sighted, illegitimate, pedophile. At half time our coach tried to explain where he was going wrong and the buffoon hits him with a red card! WTF! I’ll admit that the coach might have stepped over the line by telling him where he could shove his red card but that dude just let the power go to his head. A bunch of us went over to try and settle him down and he ends up calling the game and using his cell phone to call the cops! What a pussy!

Then this week we get the word that we are going down to only one ref per game and we have to provide ‘parent linesmen’. Jeez! Seems that not enough of the old, fat, bow-legged little Hitler’s want to come out and work for a decent living anymore! What is wrong with these people? Well I hope they all know that it’s the kids that suffer.

Masterclass II

The American Soccer Schools Open Legends Education program announces the replacement of it’s Masterclass DVD with a new updated version to reflect developments in the world game, and it’s growth in the USA. By using current world superstars to present the material it is hoped that the ASSOLE program will appeal to a younger audience.

The section on shielding the ball from an opponent, previously presented by Franz ‘Kaiser’ Beckenbauer, will be replaced by French superstar Thierry Henry’s program on shielding the ball from the referee’s view. Henry will go on to present his unique juggling skills in which he demonstrates how to keep the ball in play without getting his cleats muddy.

The grainy 1950s film of the dribbling skills of Sir Stanley Matthews (widely regarded as the last skilful player to pull on a Stoke City shirt) has been dropped in favor of Eduardo’s expert class on flopping in the box to claim a penalty kick when things aren’t going your way.

George Best’s class on how to make the best of your talent will be retained and augmented with input from English legend Paul Gascoigne. However, a proposal to replace this with a section provided by either Gareth Bale or Theo Walcott has been tabled for the time being.

The now commonplace Cryuff Turn will be replaced by the Tevez Turn in which the concept of team loyalty is paramount, and Arsenal’s William Gallas will replace another former gunner, Tony Adams, in presenting the section on subtle foot skills.

Finally, the 20 year old section on Cantankerous Management and Referee Baiting Skills by Alex Ferguson, will be replaced by a new section on Cantankerous Management and Referee Baiting Skills by Sir Alex Ferguson.

ASSOLE hopes that this line up of current world superstars will provide our youth soccer players with a fine set of role models.

Keeping Possession

I guess I never really understood what my son’s coach meant when he said “winning in soccer is all about possession”. I had thought it meant the team should try to prevent the other team from getting the ball, but that didn’t seem to fit well with his tactic of hoofing it up the field and hoping that by some miracle it might land at the feet of one of our kids who makes a habit of loitering without any intent. Of course, the chance of them then actually doing anything with it when we all disarm them by hollering “shoot!” at the top of our voices always seemed equally remote. Even the coach’s ‘safety first’ approach of defending every ball by knocking it out of play at the earliest opportunity always seemed to give possession to the other team, but I always thought that was because a silly girlie mother like me didn’t really understand the nuances of the game the way these highly educated chaps do.

But I think I might be starting to work it out. I was asking him why he kept a roster of 22 players even though he could only dress 18 and rarely let the subs play anyway. I wondered if some of those kids wouldn’t be better off starting with another club instead of riding the pine with us or playing on our B, C or D teams. But maybe it is a game of possession after all? If we use our reputation to possess all the best players and prevent them playing against us then we should be on the way to another relentless procession towards this year’s Hollow Victory State Cup!

Last Saturday

Last Saturday’s game was such a let down. I knew ahead of time that Jenny wasn’t going to be there so I wouldn’t get the latest info on how her and her husband were getting along after she caught him making a pass at the team mom at the end-of-season pool party. So I still don’t know if she’s more pissed about him being disloyal or the fact that he chose such an old hag to be disloyal with. But then I get there and hear that the half-blind, zero coordination, two left footed, central defender and his stop-at-nothing pyscho mother are out of town so there is no-one for me to complain about and blame for all our problems.

To make matters worse the coach was sober for a change and he got there before we did with his team sheets written up and what looked suspiciously like a game plan to me. So bang went another line of conversation as I couldn’t even think about asking for my money back this week. The referee turned out to be pretty darn decent and seemed to call things fairly evenly. There didn’t seem to be a single cow mother on the opposing team’s bleachers and when they sent over that flask of hot-chocolate and a tray of donuts I knew I was screwed out of any chance of baiting them for the whole game.

In the end there was nothing else for it but to sit in my lawn chair and watch my kid enjoying his soccer. Where’s the fun in that?

2012

So my kid has just finished his high school “soccer” (I use the term loosely) season and we can get back to playing a sweeter, purer, much more expensive version of the beautiful game. As a sophomore it seems to me that time is marching on for him and it won’t be long before 2012 rolls around and we have to deal with the big issue that date brings – which college am I going to be happy with for him? Frankly, I’m getting a little bit tired of his constant “can’t I just enjoy the game?” remarks and so I’ve decided to take a much more active part in his career, which, as I’m sure you can imagine, is very difficult for such an easy going mom like me.

I’ve started by hiring a private trainer to do some one-on-one work with him. I had a few candidates in mind but in the end I settled on his current club coach. This guy obviously knows what he needs to work on and I had been told by other parents that I could expect his field time to increase by about 25% if I paid for one extra session a week, and by about 70% if I went for the full 3-day-a-week package paid in advance through next March. The fact that the coach is rather dishy and will have to come round to the house 3 times a week is an added little bonus for a woman of my age. Unfortunately we’ve had to cut my kid’s music lessons and SAT class to make the time available and I’ve also withdrawn him from the honors calculus and physics classes he was taking as he really needs to lighten the load and get his priorities right.

Since I don’t want to over burden him, I myself have taken over the process of bombarding my target colleges with copies of his highly embellished soccer resume. However, since colleges like the kids themselves to make contact I’ve taken a course in teen speak so that I can pass myself off as him. WTF dude that’s gr8.

I’ve cancelled our subscription to the Fox Soccer Channel in case the skill based European game should corrupt his American mentality and I’ve enrolled him in some specialized classes with some of Michigan’s finest college coaches. Detroit No Mercy will school him in their “Basic Brutality for Defenders” class, while Ferrell State have him signed up “Advanced Simulation”.

So I think I’ve gone to some considerable trouble to make sure that 2012 is a big year in my kid’s life. But do you know what the little shit said to me as I posted his new schedule on the refrigerator door? “Mom, it’s only soccer, it’s not the end of the world!”

Leading The Way

Jeez I can’t believe that this ‘multiple coaches’ thing is being touted as the latest big thing in youth development. According to this ‘latest thinking’ all kids should be exposed to a number of different coaches throughout their developmental years. Well hello! Maybe the reason my kids are so much better than all your E team dingbats is that we’ve been using the multiple coach approach for as long as I can remember.

Take for example my son’s team. In addition to our paid coach we have a volunteer assistant who was asked to take the team for a few minutes back in 2002 when the coach was running late for a game at our club’s annual Fleece The Parents tournament, and he’s been there ever since. I should have known how dedicated he was to the cause when he showed up for the next game in full club regalia and insisted on being called ‘coach’.

We also have a dedicated offensive coordinator who is Timmy Simpkins dad. Here is a guy who has perfected the fine art of hollering “Get a shot in” every thirty seconds or so. I think the results speak for themselves with this coaching approach as there must be at least 3% of the times when that is the appropriate action for the kid to take.

Emotional support for the boys is provided by life coach and goalkeeper’s mom, Carrie Mae Leejourno, who can always be relied on to put an arm around a vulnerable young man or two as they leave the field after a defeat. As she says, her ‘door is always open’.

Defensive coordination comes in the big round shape of former fourth string football star Danny Gutbucket who gives the boys the sort of clear concise instructions that you need in the heat of battle. I always feel reassured when I hear his powerful baritone imploring some nervous kid to ‘boot it’ whenever the ball comes within 40 yards of our keeper. It’s nice to see Danny’s son Tommy on the way back to full fitness after his stint at Fat Camp this summer.

Our clearly superior tactical awareness could be the result of the input of Loni Wallflower’s dad. Loni is still waiting to make his first start with the team as he enters his seventh season with us but his dad always seems to be able to size up the opposition and know after the first few minutes of play that its time to bring a sub on.

So don’t give me all that ‘latest thinking’ nonsense! We have the finest collection of multiple coaches in the Midwest and the results of all our mis-informed contradictory input from the bleachers will be there for all to see as the boys set out to win back their place after being relegated from division F last season.

Happy Halloween

Don’t you just love this time of year? Some of the scary things going on are just out of this world! My youngest daughter is always a little bit reluctant to get involved and is usually already screaming “Mommy, mommy, don’t make me!” as we force her into the car. The horror starts as soon as we get there! In the parking lot the smell of cheap perfume and stale alcohol is overpowering as we are greeted by ‘The Parent From Hell’. Behind that friendly façade you just know she’ll stab you in the back without a second thought.

Gradually the place fills up with a cast of characters straight out of a Stephen King novel. My favorite is always the scary clown played by the goalkeeper’s dad. The chills continue as a little old lady with a friendly smile shocks every one of us with a bill for an extra $200 for the ‘coach’s incidental expenses’. The look on all the faces says it all! Sometimes I think it would be in the spirit of the season to send the severed head of this team manager back to the club on a silver plate with a note telling them to do their own dirty work!

My daughter takes her place in a line of little zombies running aimlessly around like headless chickens. You can see the fear in their faces knowing that the head executioner is about to emerge from his coffin. Then a shadow descends upon them and there he is – Coach Bob. I swear I can almost feel his spit landing on my own face at the other side of the field as he terrifies the kids with his screams! What a performance! The nervous smiles on the faces of the parents shows we are all getting what we paid for.

A nice touch this time was the Nazi referee. Marching a few unsuspecting parents to the parking lot for speaking out loud was priceless! However, I have to say that I wasn’t sure if the guy that sidled up to me then couldn’t take his eyes off my cleavage while drooling at the mouth and making sexual jokes was one of the characters or just the father of that new kid on the team.

We all laugh and joke as the kids are ritually terrified by eleven of the biggest, strongest, fastest psychos I’ve ever seen. Where in the world do they get these players?

On the way home I try to get into the spirit of things by doing my own impression of Coach Bob and lambasting my daughter over that goal she gave up to lose us the game in the last minute, but as her big old tears roll down I’m thinking that maybe she’s had enough horror for this year.

A League Of Their Own

Here in Michigan the Professional Soccer Youth Coaches Homeboy Organization (P.S.Y.C.H.O.) is pleased to announce the formation of a new soccer league designed to eliminate the problems associated with those old dinosaur leagues formed in the eighties by parents who were only really interested in the game. The Premier Elite Development Operation (PEDO) will begin play in the fall of 2010.

Development is at the heart of the reason behind the formation of the new league. For too long youth soccer leagues have been focused on wins and losses on the field. This new league will concentrate 100% on development. Coaches will focus much less on the games being played and much more on developing a steady stream of income.

The confusion between select, premier and elite programs will be eliminated in this new league. Concerned parents will be relieved to know that by dropping the name “Premier Elite” into the conversation at dinner parties their guests will instantly know that their kid plays in the most expensive league in the state.

Only professional clubs will be allowed access to the league in order to promote high standards and to avoid embarrassing defeats at the hands of small town clubs coached by enthusiastic parents.

Clubs with multiple teams in the same age group will not be allowed to designate their teams as A, B, C etc. Teams will be designated as Red, White and Blue to prevent parents suffering the humiliation of admitting that they pay thousands of dollars for their kid to play on the ‘C’ team. Divisions in the league will not be designated as Premier and First, or any other pejorative term. Red teams will play in the ‘Spongers’ division and White & Blue teams will play in the ‘Cash Cows’ division. Promotion and relegation between divisions will be at the whim of the board of directors and we are not even going to try and justify that.

Free roster movement will be a highlight of the league to allow clubs to form teams with a minimal amount of players by bringing subs in from other teams. This will provide kids with lots of field time and the opportunity to play up even though not enough of them showed up at tryouts. This program will be known as “No Check Left Behind”.

Quality will be maintained by strict enforcement of minimum standards for DOCs in the PEDO league. Initial requirements for a DOC will a B License and no more than two convictions for child related offenses or substance abuse. All DOCs must be approved by the coaching board of directors and are subject to the league’s prevailing minimum salary requirements. American citizens need not apply.

Scheduling will be done entirely to suit the whims of the coach and to allow them to focus on their Academy and MRL commitments without having to pay a sub to cover these nice little earners. The playing of multiple games on the same day to suit the coach will be portrayed as ‘family focused’ and in line with USSF ‘best practice’ in spite of being nothing of the kind.

Let the games begin!

The Golden Jiggle

Building on a successful first WPS season proposals are being discussed to create a Women’s Champions League based on the format of the highly popular European Champions League. Chicago based Trumpet International Television Sports is poised to be the league’s main sponsor and will broadcast the games on its latenight T.I.T.S. TV cable channel. In a bid to attract a wider TV audience the format of the league and games will be modified in a number of ways:

The traditional two halves will be replaced by four periods to increase advertising opportunities. To promote roster development, players will only be allowed to participate in three quarters of a match in a process known as ‘sitting out your period’.

Un-feminine soccer moves, such as heading the ball and slide tackling, will not be allowed in WCL games. This will allow uniforms to be modified to promote a more ‘feminine aesthetic’ with the introduction of volleyball style micro shorts and will obviate the need for any headgear which might otherwise require the player’s hair to be tied back in an unflattering style. In addition, the use of sports bras will be outlawed in a bid to promote the new league’s version of Europe’s Ballon d’Or , the Golden Jiggle.

The new league is the brainchild of famed entrepreneur Pervese Oldude whose business record includes the successful promotion of National Women’s Mud Wrestling Championships. Executive managers of the league will be Hugh Hefner, Larry Flynt and Sepp Blatter. Oldude commented: “For too long women’s soccer has not been taken seriously and we are here to put that right”. When questioned about proposals to modify the offside law in the women’s game he replied “What the **** is offside?”

Suspicious Person Alert

Ahead of this weekend’s games authorities have warned parents to be on the look out for a number of suspicious persons prowling around the soccer fields. These individuals are easily recognizable by their habit of wearing high quality soccer warm ups and expensive cleats in spite of being clearly out of shape and heavily over weight. They have a habit of being verbally and mentally abusive to minors as well as making totally inappropriate remarks such as ‘nice rack’ to female parents. They show an unhealthy need to be alone with children and frequently drop f-bombs in the presence of minors while out of adult ear shot. In addition to consuming copious amounts of alcohol these weirdos have formed their own cult like tight-knit community who back each other to the hilt against any accusations of impropriety. Parents who are concerned about their children being in danger from these characters can generally de-fuse the situation by approaching the felon, pushing a large check into his sweaty hand, and saying “Here’s this month’s payment coach”.

Reclaiming Soccer For America

It’s time for us to reclaim soccer for America and bring back the halcyon days when we could beat those stuck up Brits with only a butcher, a baker, and an adult-toy-maker for players. For some reason, after we humiliated them at their “own game”, we got it into our heads that what we needed was to invite their washed up has-beens over here to coach our kids. All these years later all we have to show for it is a crowd of knocked-up soccer moms and a national team of six foot twelve long ball punters. Jeez we even had to get President Obama to capitalize on his resounding success with the IOC and speak to the Honduran ambassador to arrange a missed PK so that we could be invited to the big dance.

So, for me, the days of lend-lease in reverse are over and we can repatriate those guys to the land of rain, bad teeth and even worse food. Our club is leading the way with an American coach!

Gotta say he’s made a huge impact already. Two kids were late to his first practice and he made the whole team run until they puked. Now that is coaching! In the first game he instantly spotted that we were tactically naïve and worked hard to snuff that out by having the boys run until they puked. Then the problems with some of the kid’s first touch was put to bed with some in depth sessions of running until they puked. Discipline is also much better since he brought in a rule that every yellow card means you run until you puke, and every red card means you run until your mother pukes.

Tonight is his first ‘meet the parents’ night. I’m not sure what to expect but I’ll be taking my sneakers and a sick bag just in case.

Farewell To The Academy System

The USSF Development Academy program is entering its third year, during which time no world cups have been played and the USA has won precisely none of them. Therefore the Federation believes it is time for a radical re-think and the academy program will be scrapped in favor of Project Magic Bullet.

The new program will harness all the latest thinking on the implementation of soccer strategies at all levels:

The formation of choice will be the T3 and the federation will work towards developing a large pool of players able to play in the interposer role. USSF will employ NASA scientists to solve the one remaining issue with the interposer role – that of how a soccer player can be in two places at one time.

Based on the work of legendary coach Barney Rubble the concepts of passing and teamwork will be dropped in favor of random dribbling at inopportune moments. This approach should allow the US to not only win the world cup but should allow us to compete at a high level in the World Fanny Dancer championships. The Brazilian Soccer Schools (based in Garforth, England) will act as consultants in this area.

Every youth soccer player who registers with his state association will be issued with a SoccerWave rebounder, a ball on an elastic string, a pair of Footability DVDs and any other random junk advertised on FSC. USSF is fairly certain that these items are standard issue to the street kids of Rio and the Italian men’s national team.

Since the Brits appear to have the finest league in the world we will use their model of youth development and abandon our college based approach in favor of one in which kids do not pay to train but in which 99% of them are abandoned without an education and never get anywhere near a pro contract.

When asked about the alternative proposal to unify all our youth soccer bodies, widen the number of male college soccer scholarships, increase exposure of the professional game on the media, and abandon the MLS franchise system in favor of a pyramid approach, the Federation’s Chairman, Claude Kookooland, said that those ideas were “the sort of crazy thinking that won’t get us anywhere”. He went on to say that he truly believes the world cup is on the way to it’s spiritual home – Brazil.

Sox Scandal Hits Soccer Club

A previously well-respected soccer coach has been arraigned in Detroit Criminal Court on charges of inappropriate contact with the footwear of the players on her team. Under investigation since 1997, Edna Wellthorpe was the coach of the Unhealthy Alliance Under 19 boy’s soccer team until she was released in June of this year. Court documents allege that Wellthorpe surreptitiously, and with malice aforethought, entered the backpacks of the players and stole their used soccer socks. When questioned about the issue she is alleged to have replied that the sock fairy that prevents such garments ever being found in a pair must have framed her. Allegations that she sleeps with the sweaty shin guards of her holding midfielder are continuing to be probed by the authorities. Investigations into Wellthorpe’s background reveal that she was run out of her home in the Central European country of Lalaland after being found guilty of stealing the worn jock straps of an adult men’s team for which she was the trainer. The case became known as the ‘Curse Of The Phantom Knicker Knocker’.

Counsel for the accused, Les Getrezonable, commented that there was no case to answer and turned the matter back on the parents for allowing their kids to wear such blatantly erotic footwear in the un-chaperoned presence of a healthy young misfit. He also said the club had a burden to bear in that, over a number of years, it took frequent calls from irate parents over missing garments but allowed the coach to continue. Sonia Insayshabel, a parent of one of the boys, said “My Tony has been missing his warm up top ever since the start of the season and it’s becoming apparent that this pervert has taken it. He’s also missing his Nike Total 90 soccer ball so I shudder to think what she’s being doing with that”.

In the interests of protecting the innocent and promoting salacious journalism our reporter refused to ask if there might be any chance that the players or the parents could be in the slightest bit culpable in the matter.

First Division Soccer

Even though my kids are already way better than your poorly coached, under-funded unfortunates, I’m still always on the lookout for that little extra edge which can help keep my little darlings ahead of your riff-raff. So I was intrigued to hear about some of the ethnic soccer being played on the edges of our dysfunctional community. For example I was told that the Hispanic leagues feature either skillful soccer beyond what any mere American kid could do, or blatant flopping in box with matching outrageous histrionics. My investigations into that little question reveals that the answer depends on whose prejudices you choose to adopt. So anyway, I decided to look around the other exclusive leagues to see what I could pick up.

The Catholic Confessional League has some pretty good players who are all obliged to admit to their fouls when they are red carded. The problem seems to be that all the teams are nick-named The Cardinals. Worse than that, all the girls are called Mary and all the boys are either Peter or Paul – well except for the star striker at Mercy Mercy Me Highschool whose name is Ishmael Goldstein (but I heard the booster that recruited him to the school was let go for not being diligent enough in his background checks).

Michigan Dyslexics Academy (DAM) plays in the 8v8 league alongside the 4 kids who make up the full roster on the famed Schizophrenics United team.

The Boston based Iranian expatriots league have been refused entry to the larger soccer community until they allow the authorities full and unfettered access to their player enrichment program. The league itself has been split into two factions known as the New England Pre Revolution and the New England Post Revolution. I think they have some fundamental differences but like most Americans I have no clue what they are.

At the moment I’m still trying to understand how things operate over in England. It seems that soccer over there is arranged into four “divisions”. I’m trying to get my contact to explain to me why their 3rd tier is called the First Division. In return I’ll try to explain to him how in America, soccer “Divisions” means something entirely different.

Rogue Soccer Clubs

Thank goodness we have decent people out there to keep an eye on all these rogue soccer clubs. We should all be grateful to guys like Ivan Ajender who has been diligent in keeping us all informed about the shenanigans going on at Midwest Excess ever since the club let him go last summer. I was shocked by his revelation that the money we pay is being used to fund the lavish lifestyle of the guys who founded the club and exploited the market in a blatantly un-American way known as a “business”.

He also reveals that the club’s DOC instructs the coaches to promote a game style of kicking the crap out of the opponents and flopping in the penalty box at every opportunity. Poor Ivan has been so busy making us aware of the scandals at this former employer that he hasn’t had the chance to send back all his trophies or remove all the club’s accolades from his resume now that he has revealed they made him cheat to get them.

Ivan knew all along that one of the club’s coaches was headed to a courtroom and he’s been forced to spend hours editing all his old posts on the club’s website praising this guy now that the truth is out. I just hope that no one considers a great guy like Ivan is in any way culpable just because he didn’t blow the whistle on this dude.

Most disturbing is his revelation that the DOC picks the players on his teams on the basis of how ‘hot’ the mother is. It seems that the A teams are known as the ‘MILFs’ and the C teams are known as the ‘Ten Beers’. It seems to me that Ivan is well out of that place and now that his divorce is settled I hope that he and the mother of his former star striker will be able to settle down together after that slightly distasteful start to their relationship. I for one wish them all they deserve.

The Gender Agenda

My girlfriend Sonia has gotten herself into a bit of a situation. Her
kid ended up on a soccer team with a clueless dickhead of a coach who
insisted on playing a lame passing game and would bench Sonia’s
daughter anytime she picked up a yellow card for playing in our
traditional robust American style. So Sonia was forced to do what any
right thinking parent would do – she started flaming the guy with some
nice juicy posts on the local on-line soccer forum. Of course she’s
not stupid so she decided to use the name STRIKERSDAD which was
designed to protect her own anonymity and to drop the father of the
little bitch who plays up front on their team right in the shit.

Unfortunately her strategy wasn’t having much effect and so Sonia was
forced into a little bit of embellishment in her posts to the point
where the community now not only knows that knucklehead is a crap
coach, but they also suspect he might be a womanizing alcoholic who
knocks the kids around during practice. Gotta love the power of the
internet.

Anyway, that seemed to fire things up and her STRIKERSDAD account
started getting a bunch of private messages with more “facts” about
this coach. Sonia started to correspond regularly with some girl
called SOCCERMOMIO and before she knew what was happening they were
sharing all kinds of personal details that, to be honest, she wouldn’t
dream of saying in real life. She was actually getting quite attached
to this girl so, before it got out of hand, she confessed that she was
really a woman, whereupon SOCCERMOMIO confessed that she was really a
man and the two of them settled down into a pattern of deeply depraved
sexting which they told their spouses was all just on-line soccer
chat.

Nobody seemed to be getting hurt until the coach decided he had been
defamed and retained counsel to sue the website and force them to
reveal the names of the posters. The papers are likely to have field
day when they find out a respected coach has been branded a child
abuser by a married woman masquerading as a man in an adulterous
relationship with man masquerading as a woman in a kid’s soccer
community.

Poor Sonia is distraught and doesn’t know what to do! I hope things
work out for her because she’s such a nice person. At least, I think
she is a nice person but I’m not sure because I’ve only ever met her
on-line.

Brave New World

There was a time when it seemed to me that all I needed to do to turn out a superstar was to provide her with one of those crazy soccer balls on an elastic rope that you tie round your waist and kick for about 12 seconds before you realize it’s a complete waste of time and money. Then I moved on to one of those curvy bits of plastic that sends the ball back at you in different ways so you learn to control it, but I realized that my kid didn’t need that since there were already plenty of kids on her team that could send the ball off in totally random directions. Unfortunately I didn’t realize that until I’d already spent more money on the ‘kickback panel’ for my curvy bit of plastic – the modern equivalent of what we used to call a “wall” when I was a kid.

So anyway, I think that this time we really have the answer that the average American parent is looking for in the world of youth soccer: Genetic Engineering.

British Scientists (now there’s an oxymoron) have identified the URNUTz gene which is heavily prevalent in the world’s leading soccer players. My second husband had this gene in huge quantities and was convinced that he had passed it on to our son. Unfortunately he doesn’t know that he’s not the boy’s real father and that the kid actually inherited the XBX360 chromosome which turned him into a lazy fat ass that spends the whole day playing video games.

The leading edge now seems to be the Stockholm Syndrome in which soccer parents seem to start to sympathize with the fruit cakes who peddle this type of nonsense. This group has identified the SOCFUN gene which is inherited by every kid who just wants to play the game because they enjoy it. Thankfully these scientists are working hard on some way to eliminate this disturbing problem.

Here in the USA the approach seems to be less about genes and more about AMI (Average Median Income) theory. Research into this reveals that the higher the AMI the more likely it is that a kid will make the A team.

Soccer Movies

I noticed some discussion recently about what the best soccer movies are. Unfortunately everyone seems to have gotten the impression that soccer movies should be entertaining. I’m not sure where that crazy idea came from. The movies suggested are the usual suspects including Goal, A Shot At Glory and the perfectly believable Victory in which Pele and Rocky Balboa escape from a German POW camp, but not until after the second half of a soccer match in which they overcome a bunch of Nazis and a partisan referee in a plot line lifted directly from the Michigan State Cup final of 2006.

The problem with these movies is that they don’t really reflect youth soccer. To understand the issues in the kids game you need to look at other movies such as Basic Instinct, in which Sharon Stone demonstrates my often copied interview technique to make sure my kids end on the A team, and Fatal Attraction in which Glen Close shows us all how we should react if our kid gets left on the bench. Billy Bob Thornton’s Mr Woodcock is, of course, directly modeled on Michigan’s most famous DOC, and we all know who the Cheech & Chong of Michigan soccer coaches are.

My own favorite allegory of Youth Soccer is, of course, Jurassic Park in which the Velociraptors represent the little upstart clubs out to change the world but who get swallowed up by the big dinosaurs at the end.

Cash For Clunkers

In an attempt to continue to stimulate the economy, President Obama is expected to announce today that the Cash For Clunkers program will be extended to cover the youth soccer community. Disgruntled parents will receive a deep discount on new highly efficient coaches when they trade in their current bloated beer guzzlers. Priority will be given to parents still using 1969 or earlier models fitted with single or double knee braces. All heavy front end models traded in during the program will be rendered useless by pretty much leaving them as they are. Qualifying replacement models will be subject to strict requirements including tight cryuff turn abilities and low volatility emissions. Foreign imports will be eligible for double discounts as the government continues with its program of taking a good idea and screwing up the implementation. Questioned on whether or not this was throwing away a lot of valuable experience, and if he was worried about the inherent dangers of young coaches in charge of impressionable teens, the President replied “That’s just stupid! Oh wait, ……. I didn’t mean to say stupid”.

Ready To Step It Up?

I was on my FaceBook account this morning. It’s such a great way to keep in touch with all those losers from your past that you never really liked in the first place. The biggest plus is that you don’t actually have to meet any of them. The other day I got a message from a girl who was on our cheerleading team in highschool. I remember she was always so aggressive. She used to start so many fights but never finished them because she had attention deficit disorder.

Anyway, knowing of my reputation as an expert, Sonia was asking me if I knew any ways to help get her daughter to the next level. So I decided I better take in a game or two before I made my recommendations. I could see the problem right away; she was stuck in a time warp!

Sure, you are going to get a little bit of an advantage by baiting the referees throughout the game, but everyone does that these days! Sonia was pretty good at running along the line behind the assistant ref and hollering “offside” in his ear whenever one of their players got into our half. I’d say she was scoring a pretty decent 30% in terms of goading the hapless old guy into raising his flag in error, but she was being totally outplayed by a dad on the other sideline who was using classics like “Hey ref, you’re missing a good game” and “Someone’s going to get hurt if you don’t get the cards out” to keep the center ref on the back foot.

At half time I sat her down and told her that cutting edge parents don’t use those old tactics! If she wants to play premier she’s going to have to step up her game and start goading the kids on the other team instead of the ref. To be fair to her, she played a pretty good second half. I could see the kid on the other team flinching when Sonia hollered “She’s slow and got no left foot” as her own daughter approached her. She followed up quickly with a “These are just select kids!” and then a neatly executed “Back to AYSO for these losers”. Then, with a few minutes to play her team gets awarded a dubious PK as her daughter flops in the box. As the hush falls over the crowd Sonia calls out “Hit it low! The keeper’s too fat to get down to it”! With the ball nestling in the back of the net and the tears welling up in the 12 year old goalkeeper’s eyes I was so proud of our latest super soccer parent!

The Seven Habits Of Highly Defective Coaches

Habit 1 – Be Proactive
Be on the lookout for a new club for next season long before you get found out.

Habit 2 – Begin With The End In Mind
A world cup win by the men’s national team is all that matters. Your academy program is there to provide the best training competition for the youth national teams and nothing else. All that guff about development, fun, lifetime of exercise, sports in education and teamwork is just tree hugger, Obama loving, nonsense.

Habit 3 – Put First Things First
Get the money in your wallet before you kick a ball.

Habit 4 – Think Win/Win
Losing is for losers! Win the frickin’ game numbnuts! Fat incompetent kids are there to subsidize the cost and carry the balls back to your car – they are not supposed to be on the playing field.

Habit 5 – Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood
Invoke the 24 hour rule so that you don’t have to talk to these losers and so that you can get to the pub before closing time. When the dust has settled you can listen to the parent’s distraught voice messages and then make a half assed attempt at understanding what the poor cow is getting at. Thereafter make yourself understood! You are the boss, she has no idea what she is talking about, and the club doesn’t do refunds. End of story.

Habit 6 – Synergize
Soccer is a team game! The whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts! By stumbling blindly onto a successful team you can earn yourself a coaching gig with a better paying club and leave these cheapskates behind.

Habit 7 – Sharpen The Saw
Take time out of the hours you are being paid for ‘renewal’. You shouldn’t show up to any more than 75% of the scheduled practices and if you are questioned on this you should advise the complainant that (a) you are attending development classes aimed at improving her kid’s experience, and (b) her kid will be on the bench on Saturday. This year’s Michigan Soccer Coaches Association weekly development meetings will be held in Hooters on the corner of Square Lake and Telegraph Road.

Champions!

Congratulations to the winners of the 2009 US Youth Soccer national championship series! You guys have earned the right to be regarded as the NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!

Congratulations to the winners of the US Club Soccer 2009 National Champions Cup VIII! You guys have earned the right to be regarded as the NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!

Congratulations to the winners of the 2009 USYSA Presidents Cup - the national non-champion championship! You guys have earned the right to be regarded as the NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

Congratulations to the winners of the USSF Development Academy National Championship! You guys have earned the right to be regarded as the NATIONAL CHAMPIONS.

All you youth soccer players owe a big vote of thanks to the adults who fight and bitch tirelessly with each other on your behalf to fracture the soccer community into a finely tuned rabble of competitive entities instead of one of those crazy, big-government, fully integrated programs that all those successful soccer nations have. Let’s be proud that in the USA anybody can be president, and everybody can be national soccer champion.

High Tech Soccer

I got talking with one of the other parents on my daughter’s team at practice last night. To be honest I had always pretty much ignored this dude in the past because I thought he was such a geek, but it seems I may have been wrong. He tells me his is working on something called a ‘software algorithm’ that allows him to play out youth soccer games on his computer with a 98.7% accuracy rating! How cool is that? At this point I was so taken with the fellow that I invited him back to my place to discuss it further, but he said something about a re-run of episode 7 season 4 of Star Trek TNG being on cable that he had to see.

But anyway, his computer program considers all the relevant factors. For example, if a team is able to recruit players from a team that finished higher than them last season they should obviously improve right? The guy uses these transfers to generate a factor which he calls Poaching Pointers in his program. He also uses something called the Dick Factor to account for what he calls the A-Hole Ratio in the coach’s approach to the game. These two items are then multiplied by a figure called the Payment Expectation Factor which relates to how much money the parents are prepared to invest in the team. This sum is then subtracted from the number of kids on the team who are in therapy and applied to the game itself being played on the Reality Distortion Field, which must be that new soccer complex over in Macomb County.

For state of the art parents like me this type of tool is going to be essential in the future. Some other poor deluded parent on the team suggested we could just let the kids play the games and see what happens, but where’s the fun in that?

Enhancing Your Soccer Experience

Get more out of the game by attending one of the Federated Union of Coaches and Knowledgeable United Parents fine soccer seminars. Presented by a distinguished panel of experts these seminars are designed to help you get the best out of the game by appreciating the subtleties lost on the average parent.

In the opening session Ms Penny Pincher CPA will outline how a deep trawl through the certified accounts of non-profit organizations can help you overcome the fact that your own kid’s team had their ass handed to them by more expensive clubs. Using her tried and trusted techniques of rampant speculation you will find the pain of defeat gradually assuaged as you realize that the goals your team gave up are a direct result of financial impropriety and mismanagement on the part of the cheating bastards.

Professor of Psychiatry at the University Of Diminished Responsibility, Doctor Colin Hedphuck, will then present a paper in which he uses examples of personal tragedies experienced by impressionable young women to allow sanctimonious parents to adopt a smug superior attitude. Doctor Hedphuck’s paper is entitled “There But For The Grace Of God” and will be his last major public appearance before he takes a year off to work on his theory that there is absolutely no parental responsibility for the link between inappropriate dress standards, blatant sexual lyrics in modern music, simulated sexual acts in music videos, sexting on social networks, un-chaperoned training sessions, and the growth of inappropriate relationships between authority figures and their charges.

An international flavor will be provided by Elbonian Justice Minister, Maddog Castrator, who will float the idea that the USA should adopt his country’s process of summary justice and move straight to the sentencing phase as soon as an accusation is made against a soccer coach. The minister will suggest to the audience that America’s use of due process is a mistake and that the small percentage of convictions in his country which are subsequently shown to be false are a price worth paying.

A parents only workshop on the threat of alcohol consumption by soccer coaches will be held in the bar at lunchtime.

If time permits in the evening, a youth soccer game may be played and viewed by seminar participants, but this is subject to cancellation if more important issues arise.

Tournament Flyer

Bring your team to the 25th annual “It’s All Balls” soccer tournament in Downersville, OH.

Played on 25 acres of undulating cow pasture reclaimed from the former Union Barhide chemical plant, the fields have grown into one of the state’s leading causes of injury for elite youth soccer players. We have the finest crews of partisan referees in the Midwest and use state of the art computer analysis to ensure balanced competition and that our local teams always make it to the final. The cost is a very reasonable $350 for all USYSA registered teams with a $100 discount for local teams and a $200 surcharge for Michigan teams. Hotel accommodations will be handled exclusively by our partners at Kickback Motels, whom we are pleased to announce have put last year’s cockroach issue behind them.

Wildcard qualification will be at the whim of our technical director and our exclusive ‘flexible rules’ approach will ensure lots of last minute excitement as we make it up as we go along. Security services will be provided by Big Vicious Dogs Inc, whose trained staff will ensure your comfort by removing any parent who cottens on to the fact that they are being fleeced. “It’s All Balls” is a ranking tournament thanks to the sterling efforts of our DOC Danny Nevaplaid whose years of impartial analysis have resulted in his teams being rated #1 in the state for the past 17 years.

Refunds for withdrawals made 6 weeks prior to the tournament start date will be granted subject to a $100 return fee, a $50 service charge, and a $200 insurance levy. Teams seeking a refund for games cancelled due to weather conditions can go fuck themselves. We look forward to being of service to you!

My Most Humble Apologies

I guess this is what happens when you put the power of this interweb net thingy in the hands of us little mid-western girls; all those prejudices that we didn’t know we had come rushing to the fore. Thankfully we have a world wide web of helpful folks who can tell us exactly what we were thinking and steer us back onto the right track. Having carefully read the points you have made I can see now that a number of humble apologies are in order and I am more than happy to let you have them.

I apologize to the gay community for the use of the phrase “set up those colorful cones in pretty little patterns”. At the time I thought this was just a funny little dig at soccer coaches but with your wise insight I can see now that this was a hateful slur and I fully deserve your contempt.

Thanks also for pointing out that my use of the term “we parents” is a clear indication of my inbred notion that only two parent families are the appropriate way to raise children. I was not aware of my short comings in this respect but I am grateful for your ability to read the true meaning into my words. Given that I have already shown my anti-gay prejudice, it must be clear to everyone that I am also guilty of anti-same-sex-marriage intolerance and if it wasn’t for my raging anti-deviant bias I would ask you all to spank me for adopting this position.

Mostly, of course, I have to apologize to the manufacturer of the food products who has been defamed by the fact that I have a sister in Nebraska whose name we cannot now mention in these enlightened days. To be honest, when my son’s soccer coach told me that he wanted to smear the manufacturer’s maple syrup all over me and lick it off, I just thought he was being a sexist. However, your wisdom has revealed to me the deeply racist motives in his actions. Thankfully you pointed this out to me before I let the horny little bastard do his thing.

English Accent = B License?

I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but it sounds like we Michigan parents are a little bit more discerning when it comes to assessing a potential coach for our budding superstars. We don’t equate the coach’s accent with a license equivalent. Instead we use their accent to gage the character of the “man” we are getting.

For example, an English accent is a pretty sure sign that we can rely on the coach to adopt a superior, know-it-all attitude but never actually win anything – a little bit like the English men’s national team when you think about it.

On the other hand if we are looking for a coach who will be a role model for the kids in terms of demonstrating how to make a successful life in spite of being a 5’ 3” red head with mis-spelt tattoos and bad teeth, then we look for a Scottish accent. These guys are also great at teaching the kids how to fight with the linesman and can be relied on to try manfully, but unsuccessfully, to bed every mother on the team.

A fun loving coach with a constant bewildered look on his face is most likely to have a Irish lilt, and neatly arranged rows of color coordinated marker cones are usually the work of a German accented tutor. If I was looking for a coach who can stop the conversation dead in it’s tracks then I would seek one whose opening line is always “When I played back home in Iraq……”.

Finally of course, if I’m looking for someone who insists on being called “Coach” twenty years after he retires, who wouldn’t recognize ‘goalside’ if it sat on his face, and whose solution to every issue is to increase the amount of conditioning the kids do, then I’ll pick one with a nice, reassuring American accent.

Things I Wish The Coach Would Understand

1 – The modern soccer parent chooses to communicate with you through the medium of a public web-based soccer forum. You should not expect to have any direct conversation with us or have any clue about who is actually posting any criticism of you. We’ll be nice to your face in order to keep our kid on the team but part of the deal is that we get to anonymously ridicule you to the rest of the soccer community. Deal with it.

2 – Unless you regularly deliver state cups followed by deep runs into the regional and national post seasons, you must accept that you have gotten the ratio of technical to tactical training totally wrong and we as parents could see that all along.

3 – You must understand that our kids also play baseball, go to school, have church committments, and occasionally will visit with their Aunt Jemima from Nebraska. With this in mind we expect that you will be at the practice field 30 minutes early to set up those colorful cones in pretty little patterns just in case we should decide to actually show up.

4 – We also expect you to be at the games 45 minutes early so that we have enough time to demand changes to your starting line up.

5 – Please do not get the impression that, just because we have chosen to join your team and are paying you handsomely to teach our kids, we have any faith in your ability to actually do the job.

Press Release

The Michigan State Youth Soccer Federation announces today that it will launch a pilot program of mandatory substance testing starting in the fall 2009 season. The success of the pilot will be assessed before the scheme is rolled out state wide with a tentative introduction date of spring 2010. The pilot program will focus on the U13 Girls division and will feature random testing at all league, premier and state cup games. Commenting on the system, MSYSF Director Of Mis-Administration, Todd Phuckitup said “We didn’t think we had a big problem here in Michigan but if you listen to some of the things the parents in this age group say it’s clear that they must be on drugs”. Clubs will be entitled to levy additional charges for the cost of having the coach collect a urine sample from parents prior to each game. The program will be marketed under the banner “Michigan – Taking The Piss!”

From The Notional Enquirer

A youth soccer program on the west coast has been revealed as a thinly veiled cover for a shocking parental wife-swapping lifestyle. These sick parents would routinely take their kids to out-of-town soccer tournaments and meet in their hotel lobby after packing the players off to bed under the premise of them getting a good night’s rest. Then they would draw “Player Passcards” from a pack held by the so-called ‘Team Mother’ and hook up with opposite gender parent of that player. The depraved scheme came to light when one parent threatened to sue the club after she was paired up with the father of a B team player who was subbing with the team for the weekend. Robert Slimeball of the law firm Sue, Cheatem & Spend, acting on behalf of parent Sonia Insayshabal, state that their client is an A team quality superstar and shouldn’t be expected to have to put up with the B team performance of the hapless father who was subbed in during the second period of double overtime. They further state that their client is quite happy to ‘play up’ but shouldn’t have to ‘play down’. Counsel for the defendant state that the club has always been focused on long-term development over short-term results.

Invitation

You are invited to attend a celebration dinner to mark the achievement of Landon Donovan being awarded the 2009 Hope Solo Trophy for the player who best exemplifies what being a team player is all about. The dinner will be held at the home of David Beckham. BYOB.

Summer Time

Some of you crazy parents just don’t get it. Even those girlie-men that play in that stupid Premiership thingy over in depressingly gray England understand that summer is the OFF SEASON. The pros over there realize that this is not the time to be playing in tournaments. For them, summer is the time to demonstrate your loyalty to the team by having your agent hawk your ass to any club willing to pay you more than your current obscene earnings. Summer is the time to trade in your old WAG for one that has actually had a hit record in the last five years or so. Summer is the time when newspaper stories of you being arrested for soliciting in a men’s restroom on Clapham common can be relegated to page five.

So if it’s good enough for the so-called professionals what is with you nutcase parents forcing your kids to play soccer in the summer heat?

Responsible parents like me understand the need for some R’n’R so that our kids can give their best when the real stuff starts up again. We will be taking a well earned family break from soccer with a nice European holiday where the only balls on view will be in the tightly packed speedos worn by the greasy bums on the beach in St. Tropez.

The only problem we have is in finding a time when all of us can be together.

By some miracle my hapless son’s academy team has made the national finals, which has kept them training three times a week ahead of the games this weekend. That’s nearly two months longer than his normal season before I purchased him a spot on the team which uses these ‘best practice’ techniques. I also heard a whisper that some totally blind selector might name him to his conference select team to play against the Youth National Team after the championship is over, so now I have no idea when he is going to be available for a vacation – especially since his high school coach is already on the phone day and night trying to get him to go to the illegal pre-season training sessions he’s doing behind closed doors at the dome.

My eldest daughter is, of course, heading into her senior year. At the moment the only offer she has is as a possible walk on at the division four University Of Last Resort in Snowshoe, PA. Given the money we have spent on soccer for her these last ten years I am still hopeful of getting her into UoM, State, or Oakland. Before I resort to using my feminine charms I’m making one last financial bid by having her go to all three college’s summer camps this year so that she can (metaphorically) kiss the ass of the head coaches in person.

My youngest (aka “The Protégé”) is, of course, a very busy little girl. With morning classes in proprioceptive movement and spatial awareness, afternoons with her personal foot skills trainer, and evenings in the weight room, we already struggle to find the time to get her to her therapist on time. I hate to boast, but for a six year old she handles it all very well, and though she hides it quite well I think she’s missing her teammates who are playing in those stupid summer tournaments.

Having said all that, it looks like we will have time to be together in the first week in August which is really cool because we can be in St. Tropez just in time for the beach soccer tournament they are holding!

Need Your Advice

So what should a responsible parent like me do when the coach is clearly making some mistakes? I’m not sure whether I should take the softly-softly approach or just come right out and let him know that I’m going to tell his wife about that time in the Comfort Inn, Toledo, OH at the Best Of The Mundane tournament if he doesn’t get his act together.

The problem is tactical. He insists on playing a flat back line when a sweeper with breaking wingbacks on the counter is clearly called for. Our holding mid is playing a little too deeply so our transition time is not all it can be because our line of confrontation isn’t far enough into zone of initial impact. To be fair he has adopted a modern ‘one up top’ strategy but is using her as a target player when she should be playing with her back to goal, holding the ball, and then laying it off to the countering wide mids before pushing into the point of maximum opportunity. The girl playing in the hole behind the target is trying hard but isn’t being supported by the type of total football player required for this strategy.

If he could just sort this out we’d be one of the best U6 girls teams in the Midwest.

Tips For New Parents

If you are the parent of a new kid on an established team you need to make a good impression when you first meet the rest of the parents. Don’t make the mistake of just going up, introducing yourself, and then talking non-stop about your daughter. They’ll hate you for that and think you are a threat to their kid’s spot on the team. It’s much better to open the conversation by asking a question. That way you’ll come across as a little bit vulnerable and they can feel all superior by giving you the information you need. Here are some sample questions that I’ve used to endear myself to the parents of our new teams over the years:

Did your daughter forget her glasses today?
How long have you been putting up with this goalkeeper?
Did you guys ever win before we joined the team?
Who is the slut in the red tank top?
How are the anger management classes working out?
How can they afford this club?
Is the coach really as well endowed as your wife says?

Drop me an email if you need any more advice.

Press Release

Fox Television today confirms that it has secured the exclusive broadcast television rights to the on-screen version of the famed soccer blog FullRideSoon. The show will broadcast this summer season and will expose a wider American audience to the insanity widely prevalent in the close knit, dysfunctional soccer community. Opening episodes will feature ‘Tryouts’ in which potential team players and their desperate parents are mentally abused by a process widely considered to be the youth sports equivalent of water boarding. In a departure from run-of-the-mill reality shows, the participants will be forced to sit by the telephone for up to ten days before finding out if they have been selected. Additional twists include last minute phone calls to successful candidates to tell them that the coach has changed his mind.

Subsequent episodes will focus on the mental anguish suffered by pre-teen girls as they face the dilemma of playing a team sport in which they are also deadly rivals with their teammates for the single spot on the ODP roster which is the show’s ultimate prize. Audiences will be delighted to watch the girls refuse to pass the ball to each other as their parents stab each other in the back at every opportunity.

Fox has recruited BJ Gonzalez as the team’s coach. With his gimpy leg, shock of red hair, and 250 lb frame, Gonzalez is widely regarded as one of the most physically repulsive coaches in US soccer. The show’s highlight is expected to be when one of the mothers finally gets desperate enough to throw herself at him.

FullRideSoon is the creation of Michigan mother of three Phillipa Rideson, generally considered the only sane soccer parent in the nation.

From Today's Paper

State Police took advantage of the Memorial Weekend holiday to break up one of the largest organized child abuse rings seen in recent times. Hundreds of demented parents were arrested while gathered at the side of large arenas where they would bay and foam at the mouth whilst their unfortunate offspring would do battle with each other in the height of the midday sun. Victorious parents would holler “You suck!” at the vanquished children and goad their crestfallen parents with loud proclamations of their ‘State Ranking’. If neither team was declared the outright winner both sets of parents would join forces and crucify a hapless adult dressed in a curious yellow shirt with black pinstripes. Police Chief Al Amerrykhanboy had tears in his eyes as he described pre-teen children being forced into cruel training drills and verbally abused at the hands of strangely-accented ‘High Priests’ as part of their preparation to take part in the Michael Vick Soccer Invitational.

New Team

Well, after what must be the longest tryout in history, it looks like we’ve settled on a team for my youngest daughter for next season.

The process began a few weeks ago with a couple of pre-tryout poaching sessions held by the club’s Director Of Nefarious Activities, Todd Underhand. We then discussed the situation at our current club with their Reassurance Counselor, Bob Undermine, and we even met with the Team Manager, Sonia Underpaid. I was particularly impressed with their speech about the expectation of our “long term commitment to the club” made by their new DOC who transferred over from Wazdar this year following his move from the Wolverines the year before, and The Fire the year before that.

The detail they went into during the tryout itself was amazing! They even sent someone out into the parking lot to check that our vehicle wouldn’t look out of place with the rest of the BMWs the parents all seem to drive. I have to be honest and say that at that point I was worried about the kid who showed up in a Toyota Prius but then I discovered she was only going out for the non-competitive rec team (aka “The Tree Huggers”) where she and her Jesus-sandals wearing parents will fit right in.

There was a little bit of soccer played too but not so much that anyone would have noticed as we were all too busy looking around to see who else had showed up.

The coach is actually an American which was a bit disappointing as it means we won’t be able to play our favorite game of “What do you think he meant when he said………?” in the car on the way home from another routine drubbing at the hands of those kids from the poor side of town.

His name is Bobby Jones but the girls all call him ‘Booby’ which is probably because he has a fine pair of man-boobs that jiggle when he chases after the linesman to dispute yet another bad call. On the other hand the parents all call him “BJ” which I thought were just his initials but supposedly relates to some initiation ritual that all the moms (and one of the dads apparently) have to go through when your kid joins the team.

At the end of the day we gathered in an excited huddle as they named the 18-strong roster and I beamed with pride as my daughter’s name was read out. As I was writing the first of many checks I heard some cynical parent pointing out that only 18 kids had showed up to tryout anyway. Some folks just like to find fault with everything.

Keeper Needed

Michigan Trash U13 Girls are looking for a goalkeeper to join their roster for next season. This is a great group of girls and parents who are friendly, supportive and will make you most welcome until you start picking the ball out of the net. We are a highly competitive team that is just coming off a great season marred only by a number of basic goalkeeping errors that led to an early exit from state cup and relegation from our league. If our current keeper, her fat ass mom, or two-timing lothario dad are reading this I’m sure they’ll take the hint. Email coach BJ Censeetiv at cuttheslackers@notmail.com for further details.

An Apology

I want to apologize to everyone for my daughter’s behavior at tryouts this year. She may have given the other girls the impression that she had already been promised a roster spot ahead of time. Nothing could be further from the truth. In actual fact girls like her who have weight issues, two left feet, a complete lack of co-ordination and a lazy left eye, actually have to work harder than most at tryouts. I’m sure that some parents will infer that her limited time on the field, and the fact that she didn’t actually come into contact with the ball, yet still made the premier team, suggests there is something going on. However, more advanced soccer fans will recognize this as a great demonstration of quality off-the-ball play. The rumors that she only made the top team because I agreed to bring my son, (current regional ODP captain, stud, superstar and general soccer god) back to the club that has been trying to recruit him for months are wide of the mark. The subsidized fees for my son and free travel to out of state games also had nothing to with it. You’ll all just have to accept that another part of our soccer dynasty is becoming established at the highest level.

Listen up, all you cynics!

I know a lot of you think that youth soccer is just all about the money these days but, take it from me, there are still good people out there in our little dysfunctional community. Just before tryouts I took a phone call from my youngest daughter's coach. Here is a guy who is moving on from our current club but even so he still wanted to take the time to offer us advice about my daughter's future. Prior to his call I had no idea that our current club's DOC was actually a "money-grabbing rat who knows nothing about soccer". I also had no clue that my daughter was about to be cut in favor of a much lesser player whose mom is of questionable moral standing, or that there is a clique of parents who choose the team and I'm not one of them! On the soccer side I was a bit surprised to learn that our current club's "glory days are over" due to the falling coaching standards and I was absolutely shocked to be told that our abject failure as a team this past year was all down to the club's failure to properly support the coach. It just goes to show that all those parents who thought that his drug and alcohol issues played a part don't know what they are talking about.

Now before you all jump in and say that this level of service is a one-off, may I remind you that this is the same coach who recruited us to our current club last year when he gave us the dirt on our previous club? So all you losers can stay where you are if you want but I will be moving my daughter to wherever this guy goes because I, for one, understand the meaning of the word 'integrity'.

Community Journalists

It’s very encouraging to see that Michigan continues to innovate in these tough economic times. With snoozepapers going to the wall, or cutting down on their print editions, I for one am delighted to see the rise of the community journalist. These self-centered enthusiasts bring a fresh exciting subjectivity to sports reporting in our local papers and they seem to have quickly mastered the fine arts of partisanship and inaccuracy so beloved of their professional colleagues. Here’s one of my favorite examples:

Super Soccer Sisters by Neil Downinhommage
A college bound star ensured that Hoocares East cemented their spot at the top of the 3rd Division of the Inbred Farmers Conference last night with a comprehensive 1-0 win over local rivals Hoocares West. Chief architects of West’s downfall were sisters sophomore Mindy, and senior college recruit Mandy Downinhommage, who combined to score the winning goal, dominate the midfield and control the defense. The winning goal came in the third minute of the second half when the ball was dribbled 70 yards and shot by some girl who no-one cares about. The ball rebounded off a post and was expertly deflected off her backside by Mindy to her college-bound sister who faked a trip and guided the ball into the net with her finely tuned, soon to be playing in college, left shoulder. Claims of hand ball and offside were swept aside by center ref “Uncle” Bob Downinhommage who knows a good goal by a scholarship quality player when he sees one. East peppered West’s goal with 20 shots; 2 from Mindy, 1 from soon-to-be-playing-big-time-ball Mandy, and the rest from some other kids who were also playing. No one on West’s team was worth mentioning. College recruit Mandy can expect to take her place in the starting line up next season at Wealthy Donors College where she will play in the recently dedicated Downinhommage Memorial Stadium. Who would bet against her sister joining her before long?

The New Coach

Once again our school has maintained its record of being the quickest in the state to fire the coach after early season results didn’t go our way. Two ties and a single goal victory over a public school is not what we expect here at Vicarious High, and the writing was on the wall for the poor hapless fool when he subbed my kid out with six minutes still to play in the season opener. It’s never nice for someone to lose his job and I could see that our Athletic Director was troubled by the matter when he left my place the other night to head home to his wife and kids.

The new coach was announced in a press release on Thursday and like any responsible parent I did a little research on him. For some reason they went with a guy who has a soccer background rather than a teacher at the school so we can’t put quite as much employment pressure on him. It took me a little bit of time to find him on the net because he seems to have avoided the usual MySpace or Facebook sites but a bit of perseverance finds him on the professionals LinkedIn network. I had to masquerade as a potential customer of his sheet metal stamping business (whatever that is!) in order to get his details but it’s all good. Nice pictures of an attractive looking wife and two kids so he should be keen to avoid any of the scandals that have dogged our program in recent times.

I added his email address to my daughter’s AIM Instant Messenger buddy list so that she can chat to him about tactical play from the computer she has in her bedroom, and we sent him a nice little introduction including some pictures of myself and my daughter on the beach in St. Tropez last summer. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to know that we are ‘tech heads’ when he receives the texts and pictures we sent to his cell phone.

For his first training session yesterday I helped my daughter pick out a nice little inappropriate top which is not great for soccer but will let him know that she is a girl with a nice sunny disposition. Just between us I’ll confess that I was deliberately fifteen minutes late in picking her up from practice so that she could get to know him a little bit better. When I finally rolled into the parking lot with just the two of them left I could see they were getting on like a house on fire. I think this guy could be the real deal and I’m so glad we’ve gotten rid of his predecessor who really was a bit of a stalker.

My Service To The Community

I figure that with Spring Break being over for the majority of our high school kids here in Michigan there must be an awful lot of photographs of the seniors having fun out there on their MySpace and Facebook accounts. If you can locate any pictures of your rival team’s stud players with alcohol in their hands, or scantily clad, or in any other compromising position, feel free to email them to me and I’ll happily hand them over to their Athletic Directors without mentioning your name. I’m sure we can get a decent amount of suspensions in place before the conference games start in earnest. Anything I can do to help you out with those close games is my pleasure!

Mama Mia

PRESS RELEASE

Following the news that soccer legend Mia Hamm is to join Southern California's Slammers FC as a coach, the Michigan Drama Queens are pleased to announce the appointment of their very own soccer icon. Former pro Brian Blunder will join the club as director of mis-management on his release from prison next month. Blunder spent three seasons playing at the very top in England's Unibond Conference (South) development league with powerhouse Skegness Albion Reserves. A tough tackling center back, Blunder was famed for having ended the careers of many of England's finest young prospects with his robust style. Following a three year suspension for match-fixing activities Blunder retired in 1993 and joined the then fledgling English Cage Fighting Association where he fought under the name of Psycho Driller and achieved an impressive 6% win rate in his 268 professional bouts. Deported back to his native USA in 2001 his entrepreneurial skills began to show as founded the famed Tax Dodgers Soccer Club and quickly racked up an impressive bank balance. His dedication to his players was admirably demonstrated when he continued to write explicit letters to the girls on his former U16 team following his imprisonment on steroid trafficking charges. Blunder was elected to the sex offenders hall of fame in 2004. The Michigan Drama Queens are pleased to be able to exploit the USYSA's lack of a credible nationally enforceable risk management system in order to be able to bring this legendary figure into our community. The Drama Queens are a non-profit club operating on the edge of reality and our motto is "For The Love Of Our Kids".

New Style Tryouts

Do you get stressed at tryouts? Do you hate having your kid's fate decided by some over-weight has-been who thinks that just because he sat on the bench for Tranmere Rovers in a pre-season friendly against Pumpherston Miners Welfare that he qualifies as an ex-pro? Are you sick of having to fill out the same form for the umpteenth time for some loud mouth, uber-gossip, meddling mother, who only does the team manager's job to keep her personality by-passed offspring on the team? Well this year is going to be different! With the economy sinking faster than Ted Kennedy's car off Chappaquiddick bridge those of us who have money to spend can make the rules and I for one am going to make the best of it. This year my kid ain't trying out for no stinkin' team. This year the club and coach is trying out for me! At last, in the world of youth soccer the customer is king!

The club that gets my business is going to have to have a clear direction spelt out in an elegantly written mission statement which I expect to be full of the sort of reassuring platitudes that my daughter can copy word for word into her college application forms. The club should then be able to demonstrate a blatant disregard for this mission statement with a finely crafted win-at-all-costs approach to the state cup, MRL, and any game against those bitches from Michigan Push.

I'm looking for a club that trades on its long track record of former glories to get skillfully challenged players like my son onto a decent college team. The power of a recognized brand cannot be underestimated and I'm willing to play top dollar for a strong, established American name like Canton Chelsea.

As for the coach, well I don't want anyone who has lived in the USA long enough to get found out. A nice fresh English speaking Adonis with the morals of an alley cat and an eye for the older woman is just what I'm looking for. A basic understanding of soccer might be helpful too. I also want a coach who takes the modern approach of coaching during the training sessions and then letting the games play themselves. We don't want some bone head who shouts instructions from the sidelines to the point where our kids can't hear what we parents are hollering at them.

The Power Of The Internet

The modern soccer parent has to use all the tools at her disposal if she wants to fully exploit the talents of her offspring. We all know that coaches with unintelligible accents, out-of-state competition, and cleats fashioned from the flesh of any animal listed on World Wildlife Foundation’s endangered species list, are the very least that we must provide for soccer’s next generation. But still we need to find that little extra edge that will help us fully stab our teammates in the back. I’m thinking of subtle little details such as the human growth hormone that I’ve been injecting my youngest daughter with.

In considering such details it strikes me that many ambitious parents may overlook the power of the internet in developing our soccer superstars. As you would expect, your blogger-in-chief has this down to a fine art.

Stop number one for any aspiring parent on the information superhighway should be www.youtube.com. Traditionally this has been used by the soccer purists to show supposed highlights of their inept kid’s play. Whilst not wanting to underplay the value of this approach you should also know that there is much more that can be achieved here. I myself have been posting game footage and commentary from some of our rival’s matches because I think it’s important that the wider community understands just what a bunch of dirty, fouling, cheating cows the Michigan Hags U6 girls are. I try to capture the opposing parents in their moments of exuberance as often as I can, and I have an excellent track record in taping and posting their fantastic skills at dropping the F-bomb.

I also think I’ve done my bit for promoting an improvement in the standards of our referees by posting clips of some of the seriously bad calls that these overpaid buffoons have made against my kid’s team this season which have robbed us of the state title. Clearly it is in all our interests for me to highlight this conspiracy.

Youtube also gives us the chance to promote the concept of being fully informed. For example when my son was in a run-off for the last starting spot on our roster I made sure to post footage of his teammate screwing up with the amazing regularity he shows in our big games. In the interests of full disclosure I emailed the link to our coach under my pseudonym of Teamplayer1.

A close second to youtube is the wonderful www.myspace.com. This is a great tool in letting potential college coaches see that your offspring is a well rounded individual and more than just a soccer player. When I heard that the head coach of the University Of No Mercy Detroit was going to be at my eldest daughter’s season opener I was sure to send him a link to her myspace showing her at the bible study group she joined that morning and at her first piano lesson. In the interests of promoting all the girls on the team I sent him their myspace links too. I’m sure that all those pictures of them in their bras and panties with the Bud Light cans in their hands will let him see what a fun loving bunch of kids they are.

The ultimate internet tool for the leading edge soccer parent is the on-line soccer forum. I use this as the medium of choice for communicating with my kid’s club, coaches and high school. It really is much more convenient than actually having to speak to some of these bozos. It also saves you from any embarrassment you might feel at having to make a suggestion. A simple anonymous diatribe on the net can be much more effective in getting your point across. Often however, you may feel that your issues are not being taken seriously. Advanced users will get over this by posting the same sentiments under a number of different on-screen IDs. This is simply a way of letting the club know that the groundswell of opinion just happens to be in line with your own personal way of thinking.

Selecting a moniker for your virtual presence in a soccer forum is a fine art that should not be rushed into. Adopting something obvious like TygersG93mom#9 will mark you out as a rookie and you can expect some serious comeback. The only time you should adopt such an obvious name is when you are not that person but want to post hateful messages in her name. Not that I would ever do such a thing.

Finally please always remember that there are laws of libel and standards of decency to which we must be held. A cryptic ID which is aligned to a fake hotmail account are no guarantee of complete anonymity in a world where your ISP can be traced. So take my advice and pop down to your local library or internet café. Log on there, and create your on-line account safe in the knowledge that you will never have to be held accountable for your words. It’s the least you can do in the name of your kids.

Levelling The Playing Field

The MHSAA released the following statement today:

As part of our charter to promote competition amongst high school athletes while avoiding more damaging lawsuits, the MHSAA continually reviews and updates its policies with a view to providing a uniform level of incompetence across the state. For some time the association has been concerned that a number of situations may conspire to give an advantage to certain schools. To address this situation the MHSAA will immediately implement its Level Playing Field Initiative. MHSAA has partnered with Michigan State University to offer a post-graduate diploma in Advanced Soccer Mathematics to assist athletic directors in understanding these policy changes which can be summarized as follows:

In calculating a school’s classification by enrollment numbers a multiplier factor will be assessed:
1 – Private schools will be assessed 1.75 x enrollment because the MHSAA really wants to stick it to the rich kids.
2 – Catholic private schools will be assessed the same 1.75 multiplier AND will have one goal subtracted during each game to compensate for the influence of having a higher power on their side.
3 – A mulitiplier of 1.21 will be applied to high school teams which roster more than 5 club/travel soccer players. The exception to this will be teams who roster players from the Eagles club because our Chief Executive’s daughter plays for this club. In addition high school teams who roster players from the Wazdar club will actually have a negative 0.75 multiplier assessed to compensate for the distinct disadvantage that having players from this club provides.

A ‘fat factor’ of 2.3674 will applied to teams who routinely provide a locally based referee who is old and out of shape. This factor will be increased to 2.8765 if the opposing team can provide a doctor’s certified confirmation that the referee is clinically obese. The factor will be removed if any referee should actually expire during one of his rare forays outside the center circle. An additional fat factor of 0.250 will be applied if the ref has one knee brace, or 0.375 if he has two knee braces.

Midtown High School will have two goals subtracted and a red card automatically issued to their goal keeper for all games that are refereed by that cantankerous old guy who doesn’t like their assistant coach.

During regional finals all teams will be allowed to dress one parent in the opposing teams colors. If a team is defending a narrow lead but is under pressure in the closing minutes the ‘ringer parent’ will be permitted to run onto the field, threaten the ref and have the game abandoned with the score in their favor. Private schools can have two ringer parents because they always get more than everyone else.

The MHSAA has gone to the trouble of retrospectively applying these rules to the spring 2008 season, and is pleased to be able to tell you that the outcome is that all 4,325 games played ended in a 0 – 0 tie.

Meet The Parents

With the girl’s high school season underway our team held its traditional “Meet The Parents” get-together last night. What a trip to the zoo that turned out to be!

We started off by going round the room introducing ourselves, stating which team our kid was on, and giving a little background ‘color’ information. Geez! Emily Hotshot’s mom should get a special award for the amount of times she was able to use the phrase ‘only freshman on varsity’ in a sixty second time period. For some reason that seemed to provoke Sonia Ovalooked’s mom into a bit of a tirade about “flaunting yourself” but it all settled down when they both agreed to hook up in the parking lot after the meeting to sort things out.

The too-much-information award goes to the wacko father who talked about the ‘healing power of sports’ and his hopes that being on the team would help his daughter get over her bi-polar disorder, anorexia and suicidal tendencies. I made a mental note to cancel the spaghetti lunch I was planning to host for the team.

The goalkeeper’s mom made a nice appeal for team unity, asking for an end to the name-calling that went on last year, and saying that she hoped her daughter’s senior year would be memorable for all the right reasons. I thought it was quite touching although I’m not sure that her cancerous, fat-ass, bitch of a daughter can follow through.

When it came to my turn I decided to just play it straight and let them only have the pertinent information such as the fact that my daughter plays travel for the most expensive club in the state, has a personal private skills trainer, and that we purchased a spot on this year’s ODP roster for her. I think the silence that followed is a clear indication that I had made my point although it was a bit dis-heartening to see the Athletic Director shrug his shoulders when the varsity coach asked him what ODP was.

Regretfully, by the time we got to the freshman team no-one seemed to be listening and the head coach was overheard saying that the didn’t know we had a freshman team.

Randy Ogler, President of the Boosters, started his presentation by welcoming his new wife to the board in her position as Treasurer. His ex-wife’s position as registrar remains vacant at this time, but his first wife has returned as social secretary. He asked for nominations for the registrar’s role but for some reason none of the fathers seemed willing to let their wives volunteer. Randy did ask for a few moments of silence to remember the previous treasurer but personally I thought it was a little bit tacky to be asked to bow our heads to honor someone who took his own life after being charged with embezzling $115,000 of our cash.

Finally it was the turn of the coach to lay his words of wisdom upon us. He made a big thing of reminding the girls about the school’s policy on alcohol and how, with prom, graduation, and open houses coming up this is particularly important. Poignant words from a man who will be back to riding the bus with us to away games this year following the loss of his driving license for a DUI conviction.

Yes, it was quite a night. Sometimes I think we are the only normal, well-adjusted family in the Midwest.