Up And Running!

Well, at last, my eldest daughter’s high school junior year soccer season has started in earnest! March’s tryout week has come and gone, ending with the traditional naming of the varsity roster that was chosen before Christmas. All that remains of the selection process is the blind disregard of the letters of complaint to the Athletic Director, and the tearful anonymous posts on the local on-line forum.

I just don’t understand why some parents get so stressed out at this time of year. Really, in your heart of hearts, you know whether or not you have donated enough to the booster’s fund for your kid to be sure of a varsity spot. The only real interest for me is trying to work out which parents will be far too proud to let their darling daughters accept a spot on the JV roster. Sometimes it can be as long as ten days before these sad losers are back in your face bragging about how their star is playing SuperMRL Premier Academy Elite with some out of state team that takes advantage of Michigan’s laissez-faire attitude to the sporting seasons. When will they learn that just because you are good at the game doesn’t mean that you are a ‘player’?

We play our first game tonight! It’s the traditional, non-conference, season opener against our old friends from the local, hopelessly under funded, public: Patsy High School. I’m not sure how I feel about the district forcing us to play these cannon fodder teams right off the bat. Sometimes it gives the girls a false sense of how we stack up. Still, it’s a home game, so if we mercy them early enough I can still be home in time to watch Dancing With the Stars.