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!
Friday, August 28, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
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?
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?
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, August 3, 2009
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!
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!
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