Maximum Performance

Got the little one up early this morning and popped her into a cold shower to help clear away the Ambien she takes to make sure she gets a full night’s sleep. Maybe she should have taken her Ritalin before the shower and that would have calmed her tantrum a little, but as usual I didn’t give it to her until it was too late. It hadn’t quite kicked in by the time she came to the table so I caved a little bit and gave her the Fruit Loops she wanted instead of the power breakfast I had prepared, but I poured on some Muscle Milk and gave her a protein shake to help wash down her multi-vitamin and L-Arginine. I drove her to school so that she doesn’t have to share the bus with the kids who have colds, head lice, or mal-adjusted parents, and I reminded her to act-up with the teacher in the first 15 minutes so that she gets made to sit away from all the bug carriers.

The teachers won’t administer the kid’s medications these days so I had to pop down to the school a half-hour before gym class and give her a couple of Tylenol so she could exercise through the pain of her Osgood-Schattlers. Then I went in again at lunchtime to give her a Five Hour Energy for the afternoon session and picked her up at 2.30 which is perfect timing to get her fed full of high-fiber, full grain pasta before practice starts.

I let the coach know that she had already taken her Gatorade Prime in the car on the way there and that her Gatorade Perform was in her bag. Normally I like to watch practice but I had to pop out to the store because we were out of Gatorade Recover and I wanted to have some by the time she finished. The coach was appreciative of my efforts and let me know that he himself had taken a couple of Cialis just in case it was of any interest to me.

When we got home I was going to give her some Natrol to help her focus on her school stuff but we decided to blow off her homework in favor of watching a documentary on the Discovery Channel about Barry Bonds and all the performance enhancing drugs the cheating rat took. I hope she understood the message I was trying to send her.




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The Sensitive Approach

There’s a lot we parents can learn from the modern youth soccer coach regarding how best to handle difficult situations. Sometimes the sensitivity of these trained professionals is just awe-inspiring. However, I have to be honest and say that at first I wasn’t quite clued-in to our Highschool coach’s way of thinking when my eldest came and told me that she’d overheard him disparaging one of our freshmen during his regular flirt-fests with his three senior captains. But once I had spoken to him and received his wisdom it all became clear. It seems the coach believes it is important that his experienced girls understand that the ‘homely little geek’ freshman might not be able to perform at the big moments, and so her ‘bony little ass’ will be fixed to the bench during play-offs. That sort of caring attitude to ensure the little one doesn’t make a fool of her self has inspired me to take a leaf out of his book. So I’ve let all the parents know that the coach might not be able to perform at the big moments either, just like he couldn’t for me that time we both got carried away in a Holiday Inn Express at the Best of The Midwest Tournament in 2005. It’s good to pass on this sort of information because, as the coach says, a problem shared is a problem halved.




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Losing Streak

A flurry of lawsuits have been issued following a recent high-school soccer match reports The Oregasmian newspaper in Portland. The game was played out on Thursday evening between the Sundown Shadows and the Adios Amigos, but was interrupted in the 22nd minute of the second half when a nude model from a local art class inadvertently strayed onto the field of play.

The Amigos have filed suit claiming that their winning streak of two and a half matches only came to an ignominious 12-0 end when the referee failed to spot that there were three balls on the field of play at the same time. They have applied to the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s parental over-reaction division to have the result overturned citing the clutching-at-straws clause in their league’s rules.

Meanwhile, three students from the Sundown team have filed suit against their Human Anatomy teacher citing charges of gross exaggeration. The teacher has countersued with her lawyer pointing out just how cold it was on Thursday evening.

The nude model has filed a claim against Portland Metal Fencing LLC for severe injuries sustained while making a hasty exit from the unfortunate incident. The company’s attorney has moved to have the charges decreed incompetent by virtue of the fact that the gender of complainant filing the suit, and the gender of the person leaping the fence are different.

Charges may also arise from two 90 year old women who were in the front row of the bleachers as the model made his/her exit. Apparently one of them had a stroke but the other couldn’t reach.

Sundown Athletic Director G.T.B Asilvalining was upbeat about the educational values of the incident pointing out that the students were being given a great insight into the long American tradition of harmless fun resulting in frivolous lawsuits.




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Bias and (in)competence.

I got a bit of a shock to my system when I discovered that there might just be a debate going on in one of the soccer websites that I occasionally grace with my increasingly famous, media-friendly presence (http://www.examiner.com/soccer-in-seattle/satire-from-the-sidelines-soccer-mom). We need to nip this trend in the bud or else we might end up with a situation where these forums develop in the sort of place where our little dysfunctional community could come together and discuss the issues our game faces in a reasonable manner. People need to realize that the internet is specifically designed to allow us to savage each other, indulge in salacious gossip, shout down our detractors, and (most importantly) ridicule the efforts of pre-teen children. If we get any more of this trendy, lefty, liberal, discussion non-sense, we’re going to end up having a reasoned consideration of all the issues arising out of the unfortunate soccer ‘sex scandal’ situation I’ve been reading about and that’s the last thing anyone wants.

So anyway, the big ‘debate’ seems to be about the difference between ‘bias’ and ‘(in)-competence’. Now I’m just like every other red-blooded, right thinking, American who wants to compartmentalize everyone into their specific area – black/white, left/right, male/superior – but in this case I think it might just be possible to be multi-faceted.

For example, my girlfriend was telling me last night about her kid’s high school game. Apparently in the last minute the blind fat-ass ref called a PK against her kid for a totally innocuous challenge that was actually ten-feet outside the box when the little bitch on the other team threw herself to her knees faster than Monica in the oval office. The opposition only scored the kick after a re-take when the homer ref said the keeper moved off her line, three kids encroached, and our coach shouted “Scooby!” at the top of his voice just as the shooter was kicking. My girlfriend states that she was watching all three of those situations and none of them happened. She was so upset that she followed the ref to the parking lot, assured her daughter that it was not ‘just another game’, and taught all the girls on the team a few new swear words that they might find useful as their careers develop. So there you have it, 100% proof-positive that it is perfectly possible for a parent to be both biased and incompetent at the same time.



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The AD's Plan

I know that for some of you the idea of the words “Athletic Director” and “Plan” appearing in the same sentence will be a bit of a surprise, but it seems that at Harebrayne High School over in Ecksklousion County such a bizarre circumstance might be about to come to pass. It seems that 43 years after the school’s last state championship – back when cow-tipping was still a varsity sport – they have been roused from their slumbers by the revelation that most of the board still did not know the AD’s name, even in spite of all that stuff in the media about the pole dancing club. Last night’s follow up school board meeting was a busy affair as over 50% of the entire school board actually showed up to hear the AD’s proposal to return the school to it’s former glory.

Step 1 will be for the school to resign from its membership of the BSTC Athletic Conference and seek membership of the Farm Boys and Hermits League in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It seems that, in spite of the fact that away games will now involve a 400 mile round trip, our AD feels that our school is much more aligned with these remote-from-reality schools than they are with the other members of the Big School Tough Competition conference. The AD went on to say that with 500 more kids than any other school in our new league we were bound to win something. This comment brought the enthusiastic audience to their feet with the school’s war cry of “Don’t Bet On It!” ringing around the room.

Step 2 is intended to bring further post season glory to the school’s soccer team after their unprecedented success last year when neighboring Krackhead High’s disqualification gave the school a berth in the second round of play offs for the first time in history. With the smell of success in his nostrils the AD is going for glory with his plan to close his school’s special education unit and end it’s policy of inclusion in the mainstream school system for any kids with difficulties. Packing these kids off to some special education unit on the other side of the county should drop the school roll by enough to merit a move down into Division II before the season kicks off. The AD’s position is that none of these retards, ding-bats, and social misfits are eligible to play sports anyway so why should they be included on our head count? In the longer term the AD feels that by removing the wheel chair access ramps, demonizing the gay students, and inciting a little creative racial tension a move to Division III is not out of the question. In the meantime, to celebrate their move to Division II, the school will supply each student with a spirit t-shirt emblazoned with their new catch phrase of “All For One, and One For All”.

A lone dissenting voice from the floor in the shape of the soccer boosters chairman was heard to suggest an alternative strategy of qualified coaches, stronger ties with the travel soccer community, and an inclusive educational focus, was shouted down as the crowd looked forward to receiving one of the tacky wooden trophies the MHSAA awards to schools who have stomped over everyone else and learned the life lessons we all get from participation in school sports.

My Kid Is Great......Again!

After a little bit of a lull it looks like my kid is back to being the god-like-genius that my financial investment in him merits! No longer is he out in the wilderness where he was being roundly ignored by the high priests of soccer wisdom, but now, once more, he is being hailed by the grand order of college coaches as the new messiah of the world game. As fall has rolled around my inbox has begun to fill up with messages paying homage to the chosen one and hailing him as being a “key part of our recruiting plans”, an “outstanding prospect”, and “able to make an immediate impact”. As a parent, it’s gratifying to hear this from these wise men that can spot the chosen one in his fledgling stages. I’m particularly impressed with the coach who wrote to say he had recognized my son’s abilities during an academy game in which he wasn’t even rostered. The insight of these prophets is truly awe-inspiring.

Of course, each of them also understands that my particular savior is still a work in progress and, to a man, they have recognized that all he needs to do to reach his god-given potential is simply sign up for their up-coming, $300, winter recruiting camp. It actually feels like previous occasion that my son was hailed as a genius in the halcyon days of spring and these same priests were clamoring over each other to get the chosen one to sign up for their summer camps.




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My Season Begins

And so the Labor Day holiday brings the official start of another soccer season. From here on out the travel programs can play league games and the high school boys can play their conference games. I’ve always thought that Labor Day was a bit of an un-American holiday given it’s socialist overtones and so I’m going to suggest we re-name it ‘Three Check Day’ since most of us travel soccer parents have already written three checks to their soccer club by the time the start of September rolls around. It’s funny how we are all desperate to write that first check at tryouts in June so that it feels like our kid really has made the team, but how we resent writing the third one because we still haven’t seen anything in return.

That’s not to suggest that financial problems are exclusive to travel soccer. Our boys high school program has had severe cut backs this season. The Varsity assistant coach is no longer going to be a paid post, the uniforms have to be used for a seventh season, the bus will only take the kids to away games leaving them to make their own way back, and the qualified athletic trainer has been replaced by a volunteer in the shape of Eddie Zabrinski’s uncle Benny who took a pre-veterinarian class in Idaho in 1968. With the money saved the school should be able to add another assistant coach to stand alongside the seven other 350lb train wrecks that “coach” the football program.

I guess the nightmare scenario for the school will be if un-qualified Benny treats an injured player by wrapping a flea invested seven year old jersey around an open cut and then leaves the disoriented kid to drive himself home to the suburbs from somewhere in downtown Flint, Michigan. Still, maybe the kid won’t live long enough to sue.

The tough part of any new season is, of course, scheduling. Monday night is the worst for us. I pick the little one up at 3pm and drop her at practice where she waits alone for 40 minutes with a pop-tart and Gatorade for the rest of her team to show up. I dash off to pick up the boy and get him to practice before taking the eldest to conditioning classes and get back for the little one hoping to goodness that I’m not last to arrive because I still worry over those stories about our coach and the U15 goalkeeper. We can usually swing back for the boy in time and if he jumps straight in the car we can normally stand the smell of his shinpads because it means we don’t have to listen to my eldest bitching about how long she’s had to wait. Of course it all goes FUBAR if the boy’s coach does his usual ‘extra running because that’s what I did back in the 70s’ thing. From there we like to sit down as a family and have a well-balanced, nutritious, meal from the drive-through at Taco-Bell. If I get home early enough the kids might just manage their homework while I wash the gear for tomorrow and try as hard as I can to remember what the coach said about us all needing to show a little more dedication.



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Guest Player

My daughter’s coach has asked if I’d like to be his date at a society wedding in Rochester Hills next weekend. It’s a little bit of a late invitation because it seems his current girlfriend has decided to go back to her husband, leaving him without a partner for the wedding and without a left sided central defender for the fall season. I feel a little bit like how a guest player must feel at a showcase tournament and I’m wondering what tactics I should use?

Part of me thinks that I should agree but be really demanding and insist that he sends a cab to pick me, cover the cost of my room in the hotel, and take care of breakfast in the morning. I was even going to insist that I “play the whole game” but I’m worried that he’ll misinterpret that suggestion.

On the other hand I could just gratefully accept and then let him play me as he sees fit. I guess that might be more acceptable to the rest of the guests who won’t really be expecting to see me playing in some other girl’s position.

So I’m not quite sure what the protocol is because I guess there’s no fixed etiquette as last minute guests are brought in for lots of different reasons.




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Summer Soccer

We are only a couple of weeks into the school summer break and the kids are driving me nuts already. For some reason they’ve gotten it into their head that this is some kind of soccer ‘off season’ which means they can lay in bed until after 7am when they should be out doing their daily conditioning run. I know it’s tough on them but recent events in South Africa have proven once-and-for-all that it is down to soccer parents like me to carve out a future for our national teams on the world stage. Lord knows that the so-called experts with their “Project 2010” thing haven’t exactly brought home the bacon have they? So move over you guys and accept that we soccer parents are the solution instead of the problem you have been making us out to be.

Summer afternoons are, of course, the perfect time for college showcase tournaments! I love to pull up my fancy lawn chair with the sunshade canopy, cold drinks holder, and battery powered fan, at the side of a soccer field where 22 desperate teenagers are ignoring all the ideals of team play as they sweat buckets to individually impress some pimply 20 year old assistant associate volunteer coach from a D6 school in The Edge of Oblivion, Idaho. However, there seems to be some problem for my kids with playing soccer in the hottest part of a 90-degree day. They never seem to show their best in these summer showcases. I wonder what the problem could be?

But like all kids they are smart enough to use the opportunity to get me to shell out on all the latest gear. My eldest daughter has even gone so far as to ask me to get her a sports bra. Apparently she thinks it will help her to “stop jiggling” when she runs with the ball. I told her she won’t get a second look from any of these college coaches with that kind of attitude.

Meanwhile my boy is glued to the TV watching the South African Vuvuzela Symphony Orchestra going through its paces at some obscure sporting event. It’s some crazy game where offside doesn’t matter and putting the ball into the net doesn’t seem to count. It kind of puts our problems in perspective.



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From Your Super Soaraway Sun Newspaper

Don Fabio Crapello has failed in his bid to become the first pizza tosser to be made a Knight of the Realm and is now likely to face the axe of her Britannic Majesty, Queen Elizabeth Borden. In a foolhardy bid to revolutionize a nation’s 44-year obsession with repeating a feat of immense luck, Crapello introduced a distinctly Italian approach by encouraging senior players to pork each other’s girlfriends and to surrender when the going got tough. His Latin methodology did not sit well with traditional English characteristics of thinking you’ve done all the work in the qualifiers and believing you are as good as this newspaper built you up to be.

A period of national mourning has been announced in England whilst Scotland, Wales and Ireland will introduce a program of street parties amid scenes of unbridled joy. In a related development hundreds of English ex-pat soccer coaches in the United States have suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth and the blogosphere. In the meantime the whole UK will dust itself down, pick itself up, and look forward to a Brit winning Wimbledon.



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The Original Soundtrack

So the World Cup came back to Borden Park on Saturday. It was here in this suburban Detroit park that teams playing their matches at the Silverdome would practice during the 1994 tournament. How well I remember trying to catch Hagi’s attention in the hope that he’d show me his ball skills.

For this year’s World Cup one of the local clubs had arranged for Borden to present a big screen showing of the game in which we summoned up the spirit of 1776 and 1950 to take on the mighty-in-their-own-mind English and their British Bulldog coach with his Italian accent. It was such a melting pot of cultures as traditional African vuvuzela horns, fashioned from cheap plastics in China, were sold at inflated prices in a classic example American exploitation. As I shelled out my greenbacks I truly felt I was part of what the World Cup has come to represent in 2010.

As I laid my Burberry rug out on the grass and settled down to watch the game, the sound of the local kids blowing their vuvuzelas carried me across the miles and I wondered what they would sound like in the cauldron of the stadium in which our boys prepared to do battle. Even as the English scored their first and last goal I was wondering what a vuvuzela would sound like ringing across the plains of the Serengeti. I wondered what a vuvuzela would sound like in the hands of a magnificent Zulu warrior calling his brothers to arms. But as the second half kicked off I was beginning to wonder what a vuvuzela would sound like shoved firmly up the arse of the pain-in-the-butt 'fans' ruining the frickin’ game.




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It's All Balls

OK, enough already! Will you all please just get off my kids’ back? The result today had nothing to do with her! Yes, I know she may have given the impression that all six of their goals were the result of her having the hand/eye co-ordination of an English goalkeeper, but please, stop the cries of “Sub-out, retard”. There is no way that a highly trained, elite premier, super academy, ECNL, Divison-1-bound kid like mine would ever make a mistake. So it must have been that new Adidas ball.




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Out Of State, Out Of (Our) Mind

So, Memorial weekend rolls around once again and we honor our servicemen in the traditional way by making fools of ourselves at youth sports tournaments all across the land of the free and the home of the self-centered. With winter well and truly behind us, we Michiganders like to leave our local rivals behind by driving six hundred miles or so south where we get to play exotic teams like Michigan Rush, Michigan Hawks, Michigan Chill and Michigan Express. I wonder where all the Ohio, Illinois and Indiana teams are this weekend? Detroit, I guess.

Still there’s something fun about frying ourselves in the first really hot weekend of the year. All that pasty white flesh turning brighter and brighter red as we work our way towards the semi-finals safe in the knowledge that the locals will invoke some obscure tournament rule that knocks us out on the fifth level of the tie-break decision making process.

The difference between the women’s game and men’s soccer comes sharply into focus as the girls stand patiently in long lines to the ladies rest room while the guys are done in no time at all and emerge with the sort of self satisfied smile that comes from the realization that the ability to pee standing up is your one advantage in life. I’ve made many an unfortunate ‘friendship’ over the years by being stuck beside some too-much-information type mother of three as we inch our way forward in the line for a call of nature. I well remember one girl who was dancing on her tippy-toes murmuring ‘mommy daddy mommy daddy’. I figured she was either excited to have made the final or was realizing she wasn’t going to make it to the head of the line in time.

For some reason this weekend is also the time a lot of us moms decide to try and dress like we are twenty years younger than we really are. The number of mature women squeezed into bikini tops that are far too small for them is breath taking. It’s almost as if they think that the men folks will be even more attracted to them if they appear to have four boobs instead of just two.

After the games we get to go back to the over-priced hotel mandated by the tournament organizers and marvel at how ill-prepared it is possible to be for “welcoming” a couple of hundred excitable kids. But it’s all forgotten as we take the field once again, harangue the refs, abuse the kids, and remember what this holiday weekend is really all about.



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New Policy

So we have come to my favorite time of year in Michigan youth soccer. The spring season culminates with the boy’s State Cup Finals. The finalists were decided last weekend when everyone hitchhiked up to Saginaw (little S&G reference for all you sixties stoners out there) and, although the quarters and semis are actually over, it feels like they are still being played out on the local on-line forum where the traditional parental sport of ‘refusing to accept the result’ is in full flow.

The last two teams in each of the seven different age groups will fight for the right to call themselves ‘State Cup Champions” for a whole year! Except, of course, the U13 Girls who also have their State Cup in the spring, and for some uniquely hair-brained Michigan reason they will only be fighting for the chance to be State Cup Champions for about four months.

Like most folks, however, I’m absolutely livid that this year’s finals are going to be played on that perfect surface in the air-conditioned, up lighted, confines of the finest indoor soccer arena in North America. As I reluctantly take my seat in one of the 2,000 tiered seats with a perfect view I’ll be reminding every one the State Cup finals should be played in the searing heat with us parents huddled around the rock hard surface and long grass in Farmington Hills (although you have to park in Novi and walk if you want to have any chance of seeing the games). It just won’t be the same without at least one of the games being interrupted by a lightning storm.

The big problem is that from the high of State Cup finals it’s only six days to the low of tryouts for next season where we'll have the ritual torture of kids being cut from teams where they won State medals just the previous weekend. And I know it works both ways with kids voluntarily leaving teams that just took them all the way too. The outcome is that Michigan sends it’s teams off to the Region II Tournament with the solid, team building, all-for-one/one-for-all core of a group of kids who have already been cut or who have already jumped ship.

So to overcome this delicate situation we’ve come up with the idea of not telling the kids they have been cut so that they don’t get discouraged! And coaches will not be allowed to ask their best kids if they are definitely coming back next season to prevent them acting like dicks when their superstars take off to play with someone else’s Academy! How’s that for a solution to a difficult problem? We’ve decided to call this ridiculous new, un-enforceable and hopefully quickly repealed policy “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.





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Its All Politics

So after years with the same club my daughter has just been told at tryouts that she’s been cut from the team! I’m devastated and I can’t face the thought of facing all those smug bitches that have been waiting for this moment. The only thing worse than a smug soccer player is a smug soccer player’s mother. Hopefully the totally dignified way that I have behaved over the years will stand me in good stead.

I think the one thing that will be clear to every fair and balanced person is that this is obviously a political decision. The facts are there for all to see. She made the team every year under the Bush administration and now she gets cut under the watch of this Obama character. What more can I say? Now I know that I didn’t vote for this evasive foreign jihadist but I was quite prepared to accept the democratic process and give the office of President of the United States it’s due respect, even though the incumbent is a lazy, socialist, sponging, terrorist.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt when he personally organized the fall of the big banks, and I was still with him even though he himself started the war in Iraq and used his Satanic powers to summon up Hurricane Katrina. Even recently when he set fire to that oil rig in the gulf and helped this Faisal chappy to drive his JAPANESE vehicle into Times Square I still stood by him. And I know that the evidence on the internet that he shot JFK and faked the moon landings is beginning to build up, but I still gave him the benefit of the doubt. Until this week that is, when he started paying back the soccer moms who didn’t vote for him by arranging to get their kids cut.

So at least I was able to console my daughter with the knowledge that it was nothing to do with her and that the true benefit of the polarization of American society is that she’ll always have someone else to blame.




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With God On Our Side

Not a great game for the Michigan Cougars the other night. We play in the adult women’s league but there wasn’t much grown up play going on. The problem is that two of our players aren’t getting along very well at the moment even though they’ve always been the best of friends before now and actually go to the same church.

It seems it all started to go down hill when one of them posted a note on her Facebook status saying that God had abandoned America and would continue to turn his back on us until we woke up, got back to true American values, and dumped this people-defying, socialist President by sending him back to whatever Muslim country it was that he came from. This was at exactly the same time as the other one was posting a note on her Facebook thanking God for giving us a President who actually delivers what he says he would despite the flak he endures, and for restoring American values of inclusion, compassion, and respect around the world.

Since then they’ve been torturing each other about whether God is Blue or Red. Well, maybe not exactly torturing each other, but I guess that depends on how you define torture.

So, when the game started, one of the girls decided she wasn’t going to share the ball with anyone else and was determined to do it all herself. When she finally scored, her teammate insisted she share her goal with the rest of the team. The game itself was getting a little bit physical so one girl decided she’d better sub-out to avoid getting injured because she doesn’t have any health insurance. Her teammate told her to come back on when the new universal healthcare kicks in. That remark was a bit of red flag to a blue bull.

I guess it didn’t help that we were playing a team of Iraqi ex-pats who are just learning the game. The blue girl wanted to get in, kick their butts and get out of there as fast as we could, while the red girl felt we had a responsibility to stick around and help them develop.

While we’ve been squabbling amongst ourselves the rest of the league has been leaving us behind.

If only one of girls could look at the play of the other and say “Good idea” instead of criticizing everything the other side does as a matter of policy then we might start to consider ourselves as a team again. Of course, that’s not how things happen in politics…..I mean religion…….I mean soccer.





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From Our Athletic Director

As the spring sports season gets fully underway, this is an opportune moment to remind all our High School Student Athletes and their wacko parents of some of the key points included in our VWLI Athletic Policy document which you were forced to sign months before you cared about the content:

1 – The Vaguely Worded Loosely Interpreted Policy is the cornerstone upon which the Athletic Department teeters, and has served the vested interests of the school well since it was hurriedly written and pre-dated on the advice of our lawyers. All Student Athletes would be well served to carefully ignore this document until it’s too late to matter.

2 – Participation in high school sports is a privilege bestowed by the school, not a right of young people seeking the health benefits of exercise or the inclusive sense of belonging it brings. Academically challenged students who hope to make a contribution to the school, or who see sport as a route to peer group approval, should clearly understand that they are wasting their time and should go back to playing their video consoles or applying their gothic make up.

3 – Respect of your coach at all times is paramount. Many of these dedicated individuals are working diligently to boost the value of their final salary pension schemes by taking on the onerous task of coaching a sport they know nothing about.

4 – Student Athletes should clearly understand the level of commitment required by the carefully selected Nazis who run our programs. Student Athletes who have un-excused absences from practice will be barred from participating for two weeks and will be ritually humiliated by the coach prior to resuming play. The ONLY acceptable excuses for missing practice will be court appearances by members of the Varsity Football team, or participation in the local Gymnastics Club owned and operated by my wife.

5 – Multi-sport participation is allowable and encouraged on the clear understanding that priorities may have to be set. Where there is a conflict between sports all athletes should adhere to the following priority list:
(i) Varsity Football
(ii) Varsity Football
(iii) Varsity Football
(iv) JV Football
(v) Freshman Football
(vi) Men’s Basketball
(vii) Baseball
(viii) Academics
(ix) Any other pissy little sport that no-one cares about.

6 – Multi-sport participation does NOT extend to participation in non-school or club sports. Students who participate in club sports would do well to remember our school athletic motto: “We Own Your Ass”. Club sport athletes selected to represent the United States at national level should clearly understand that there is no greater honor than to represent the Armpitsville Highschool Chinchillas in the Greater Macomb County Level E Athletic Conference.

7 – Consumption of alcohol, use of recreational drugs, posting of inappropriate pictures on websites, and knocking up the superintendent’s daughter are all grounds for immediate dismissal from all athletic teams unless you are a stud starter on a potential state championship roster.

Student Athletes and their parents who need any clarification on our policy should contact me and I will happily interpret the rules to suit myself. Student Athletes wishing to appeal any decision by the Athletic Department should present a written submission to be considered by an appeals committee consisting of myself.

Yours In Sport

Anthony Selvesentered
Athletic Director



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The Big Dance

It’s a sure sign that the World Cup is not far away when FSC has wall-to-wall ads from WorldSoccerShop offering us the chance to display our national pride, faith, and loyalty to the cause, by shelling out sixty bucks on a brand new shirt as worn by our heroes, i.e. Brazil.

I’m not sure how things will go for Uncle Sam’s boys this time around. Either we’ll fail miserably, in which case we’ll be assured by the media that it’s time for a “radical re-think of how we run soccer in this country” or we’ll end up doing OK in which case we’ll be told that it’s time for a “radical re-think of how we run soccer in this country”. So, to save some time, I’m going to get started right now with the ideas I’ve picked up from the best-in-class around the world.

Before we can win the men’s world cup we need to have a better showing in the U17 tournament. So, it’s time to take a leaf out of Nigeria’s book! Here is a country that has done consistently well by the simple tactic of using as many twenty-year-old under seventeens as they can find. How difficult can it be?

We need to abandon this crazy ‘college soccer’ nonsense! Not enough great players are coming out of college and all that remains is a bunch of guys who “nearly made it” being left with just a college degree and a decent set of prospects. We should be following the European model where the ‘nearly men’ that don’t make it to the pros can bask in the glory of knowing they helped develop the multi-millionaire players who now sit smugly in the back of the taxi-cab they drive.

We need to rid the country of the biggest oxy-moron in the modern game; “highschool soccer”. Enough already with this crazy notion of loyalty, companionship, fun, rivalry and athleticism all tied in to a level of academic standard and social behavior. The poor level of soccer played in highschool is getting in the way of the aspirations of the tiny percentage of people in this country who actually care about the World Cup.

So, my fellow Americans, lets abandon our national identity in favor of some AfroEurAsian Latin soccer pipedream! If nothing else we’ll have the perfect excuse when we get knocked out in the opening stages in 2014.




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Cutting Edge Techniques

The Glayser, Jillet & Hocks Partnership is pleased to announce the formation of a new youth soccer club in Michigan. The partnership has purchased the assets of the previously non-profit Homespun Soccer Club, which will be re-launched as Michigan Leverage in the fall 2010 season. By using cutting-edge financial techniques the partnership has been able to purchase the club despite the fact that it does not have any money. Michigan Leverage will borrow money from the recently bailed out AGI Group and will use the cash to buy itself. The loan will be easily serviced provided enough parents continue to pay the new fee structure and none of the kids in the club ever leave, or their parents have to withdraw them due to financial hardship.

The partnership’s business plan calls for them to rack up huge debts by hiring professional coaches from English league outfit Leeds United, and renting every available hour at the Ultimate Star Soccer Complex. In year 3 or 4 of the new club’s existence the plan is to declare bankruptcy at a point in the season where the penalty of a loss of a state cup spot for not being in good standing won’t matter a damn. At that point in the proceedings, one of the partners who bought the club with someone else’s money, and oversaw the fantastic growth in it’s liabilities, will again buy the club out of receivership for a fraction of its value provided AGI agrees to write off it’s debts in a financial technique termed a ‘double whammy’.

Michigan Leverage is pleased to be able to offer the youth soccer players of Michigan, and their parents, the techniques used by only the finest soccer clubs and financial institutions in the world.

Stock Market News

Shares in Bridgetone/Firelone shot up today on news of the financial success of the tire manufacturer’s latest recycling program. Under the innovative system the company first sells their product to the consumer and then charges them a second time when the tires need to be replaced, citing a “responsible disposal” cost. The worn tires are then ground up into a finely crumbled format and sold for a third time to the producers of the artificial soccer fields much beloved by the great American middle class. From there the crumbled tire particles attach themselves to the cleats, socks, bags and warm-ups of the nation’s six million unsuspecting soccer players before final distribution into frustratingly annoying little piles on the back seats of their parents expensive vehicles, and on the floors of their bathrooms, bedrooms and family rooms. Announcing record quarterly profits, company spokesman Weasley Nickendyme commented “We as a company are highly focused on green issues”.


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More Girl Power

There’s a rumor sweeping the club that my eldest daughter’s new coach is going to be a woman!

I’ve got to say that my first reaction was “over my dead body” but the more I think about it, I’m starting to think that it might not be so very bad. It could actually be a fun to have a situation where half the parents are lusting after the coach instead of the coach lusting after half the parents.

The girls on the team should find some benefits too. For example they can talk to the new coach about their menstrual cycle, which is something they never could do with the current dude, even though he constantly behaves like he has a severe case of PMS. It’ll also be easier for the girls to talk to the new coach about other female issues such as sports bras and the like – although I have to say that the current guy has always been very attentive in that particular area.

The new coach can also depend on a lot of support from the male parents. It’s so encouraging how fathers are instantly aware that female coaches must need their help on matters of line up, tactics, play time and how the game should be played.

So I’ve been telling my daughter that it’s going to be great but for some reason she has got it into her head that she’s going to wait and see if the coach is any good or not, whether it’s a guy or a girl. Obviously she still has some growing up to do.

Take Your Kid To Work Day

So, some poor fool in the Big Apple is in trouble for taking his kid to work in the air traffic control center at JFK? What was he thinking? I mean supposing the kid had run across those two pilots who were found to be FUI? We would have been in the crazy situation of a totally unqualified kid in charge of a bunch of highly paid old drunks who have no concern for their customers. I guess that would be pretty similar to how our soccer club is run.

Back in my modeling days I don’t think I would have taken any kid of mine to work with me. The problem would have been that my kids would have had to see me scantily clad and trying to look sexy while the guy in charge leers all over me and everyone else just stands around feeling sorry for me. A bit like how tryouts are these days.

You never know what kind of trauma some kids will suffer when their image of their parents is shattered in such a cruel fashion. I know one guy whose kid was destroyed by seeing his dad humiliated at work as everyone ridiculed and cursed him all day long. He says it’s the last time he ever takes his son to watch him referee a youth soccer game.

From The State

Dear Parents

As the big tournaments get under way your State Association has only the very best interests of the soccer community at heart. In these trying economic times we all have to make some sacrifices and the association is aware that this has caused some concern in certain quarters. However, your Board of Directors is well aware that we are all in this together and that we have to share the load equally amongst all of us. Therefore, the policy of charging parents for spectator admission to watch their own kids play will continue. Divorced parents who come to games with their extended families will either learn the meaning of fidelity or will pay for the privilege. Families who can prove they have roots in Utah may be eligible for our polygamy pass with a 50% discount for each wife beyond the third.

The board is aware of a certain amount of disquiet with regard to certain parties who attend our games but do not contribute to the cost of running the tournament. We are determined to close this loophole. We therefore wish to make it clear that in future all kids on the subs bench will henceforth be considered spectators and will have to pay to watch themselves squirm in discomfort at sitting while a non-paying guest player takes their spot. Players who come off the bench before the half-time break can apply for a refund of 4% of their admission fee.

Directors of Coaching whose tax return indicates they earn in excess of $100K, or who drive a high end SUV funded by a parent, will continue to be admitted free of charge because, after all, this really is all about the kids.

Regards

Michigan Youth Suckers

ENCL

The Michigan Charlatans are pleased to announce their acceptance into this year’s new league fashion. The Charlatans are one of two clubs in the state who have been granted a license to print money as one of the 12 nationwide franchises accepted into US Rebel Soccer’s expanded ENCL program. The same club that convinced you that your 8-year-old was wasting her time in rec., and then convinced you that your 10-year-old was ruining her career by playing in select, and that Michigan Premier was the only way to go for your 13-year-old, but that MRL was way better for U14 and up, and that First Division MRL was for losers, is now happy to be able to offer you a program specifically tailored to the needs of the wealthiest blowhard elitists amongst you who have grown tired of the limitations MRL Premier.

Commenting on his club’s latest ruse, Director of Chicanery Brian Morris stated, “The ENCL will allow us to seamlessly link the bank accounts of our parents with the pubs where we celebrate our abilities. Of course, this program is not for everyone. Only the most discerning of soccer parents will truly be able to see the subtle differences that make the same tired old coaches so much more effective in this new set up. This is the reason that the new league is called the ENCL – the Emperor’s New Clothes League.”

The bragging, boasting and over-spending will start in earnest as soon as the tears of the kids whose high school careers are over have dried. US Pub Soccer hopes that the ridiculous excess and over bearing parents will not get in the way of their belief that soccer played at the highest level by the finest players is a joy to behold.

Player Perspective

After coming out of retirement to sub in with the co-ed team last week I’m now fully back in the swing of things with a brand new women’s team. We played our first game last night in an 8v8 over 30 league and have adopted the name “Michigan Cougars”. I have to say that we looked rather comely in our electric blue tops with white shorts, socks and thongs. I’m not sure about the thongs – there is actually more material in the warning label than there is on the thong itself and all it says is not to wear the garment close to an open flame. Well hello!

I’m sporting the number 9 on my shirt which I think reflects my role as an old-fashioned center forward. I’m very direct. I wanted to have the number 38 which was claimed by Jenny ‘Jiggles’ McCartney, but I think she was just boasting. Although we lost the game 2-0 I think we did pretty well and I scored, so how cool is that? The young coach we hired, Santiago Hornedog, said I had great technique and I finished well which is always nice to hear.

Of course we did get some cat calls and some extra ‘coaching’ from a number of the ‘gentlemen’ on the sidelines. It sorta reminded me of my youth soccer days when I used to wonder how my dad was able to ‘instruct’ me from the bleachers in a game he never played?

Girl Power

So my eldest daughter’s final Sadie Hawkins dance seems to have passed off with only the usual amount of teenage girl drama. I’ve got to say that I liked the idea of the girls soccer team and their dates going together as a group. I enjoyed seeing them all together, although I’m glad they didn’t invite that bitch of central defender after she was caught making out with the goalkeeper’s boyfriend and earning herself the nickname of Joan Terry in the process. It was a real team building exercise which should serve them well for the upcoming season.

I think that maybe the decision to go with short dresses might have been a mistake. Not only did it give Jules the opportunity to model that little number she picked up at Strumpets-R-Us, but it also showed a lot of the battle scars that we’ve picked up along the way. Looking at the group photo I can see nine ACL surgeries, eleven severely scuffed knees from playing indoor, and a single bite mark on a girl’s thigh which she either picked up playing against those animals at Immaculate Conception, or from dating that kid from the local public school.

Of course the real fun in Sadie Hawkins is in the girls choosing and inviting their dates! So we had a girl’s soccer team in charge of their own fate with the male of the species relegated to the bench and waiting to be selected to play. I guess that it’s a little bit sad that it’s the only time that will happen in the girl’s career.

From The Courts

Attorney Johnny Weasel of the law firm Phile, Threten & Settle lodged a claim today in Oakland County Small Claims Court against local soccer club Michigan Fantasy. Acting on behalf of disgruntled parent Al Spyneless, Weasel is seeking the return of $3,500 in coaching fees paid to the club. Weasel alleges that the soccer club’s Technical Director Neal Silvatongue used his position of power and influence to enter into a sexual relationship with his client’s wife, Barby Trophy-Spyneless. Attorney Weasel accepts that the soccer coach and his victim were free to indulge in their behaviour but that his client should not be obliged to pay for the services rendered.

Michigan Fantasy have launched a counter claim in which they allege that their employee effectively provided additional services over and above what Spyneless had paid for and that he should be liable for the balance.

Meanwhile the independent pressure group Advocates For Children has filed suit against the club, the coach, the parents, and the ambulance chasing law firm. They are acting on behalf of the soccer playing kid who is caught in the crossfire and whom they allege was the last person anyone thought about before they went about their business.

Crazy Men!

WTF is it with the male of the species? Are they all nuts or is it just the ones in my circle? I swear that if wasn’t for the fact that we need them for the occasional bit of hammering and nailing, I would handle everything myself.

The latest screw up down our way was when bonehead boy and his estranged father decided to spend their quality time together at Knub’s Knob ski center last weekend! The kid is a development academy player and he’s indulging in a risky pursuit with a flamed out dopehead fresh out of addiction rehab! Then, to make matters worse, they eat flatiron steaks and Texas fries washed down with chocolate milk shakes for dinner, and stay up till 3am watching adult DVDs in 3D on his father’s 96” HD widescreen. This on the eve of an academy scrimmage against Canton Community College’s B team! WTF were they thinking?

Fortunately he is back with me this weekend as the regular season for the Academy starts tomorrow. I kept him out of school today and got an extension on his homework so that his mind is clear. His girlfriend is banished for the weekend and he can get his cellphone back provided he starts the game. I made him some tasty bran and banana for breakfast, pasta for lunch, pasta for dinner and pasta for supper. He had his vitamins, his supplements, his energy drinks and that stuff that they don’t test for yet at his age. Lights out is 9.30pm. I also removed the copy of Playboy that he keeps under his bed and we had a serious adult conversation about it to the point where he understands that I’m not a prude, and I understand that it’s very natural, but that he shouldn’t take care of that until after the game in case it drains all his energy. I think he understood and so I didn’t insist that we tie his arm to the bedpost.

I think he’s happy that I cut him a lot more slack than the fanatical parents on our team who live vicariously through their kids.



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Flaunty Shannon And The Holy Grail

My eldest daughter’s friend Shannon has shown the world that it can be done with the news that she’s landed a full ride soccer scholarship to a Division 1 school! This is such a significant piece of news that I’ve actually tried hard to make it look like I’m genuinely pleased for her, and that I can stand to see her flaunting her new school colors in our face at every practice. She’ll be playing at Southern Michigan University where the athletic teams used to be called “The Crusaders”. However, they dropped that name when they opened their first foreign campus in Baghdad, Iraq. They’ve now settled on the new name of “The Foreclosures” to give them a nice solid sense of being part of Michigan. It’s not a school that I know a great deal about but I’m busily trawling the internet to try and find a few prime faults about the place so that I can disparage the girl as soon as her back is turned.

Got to say that I’m a little bit surprised that she made it this far. I mean, she’s a decent solid player but she’s nothing spectacular and never played with a really top price club. She wasn’t the most dedicated player either and I always thought was a little bit too studious and GPA fixated to make it as a top athlete. Plus she wasn’t much of a social animal and didn’t even get invited to go with the rest of the girls down to Cancun last Spring Break for their “Farewell To Highschool, Chastity and Sobriety” trip. So really I can’t see what the attraction is for the coach that has recruited her?

But maybe not everything is as good as it seems for Little Miss Perfect! One of the other girls, Roz Lynn Chapple, has been looking in to this so-called “full ride” business. With Division 1 schools only having 14 full soccer scholarships to hand out to their girls teams she was as surprised as everyone else that Shannon got one. But it turns out she’s only getting 20% for soccer with the rest made up of academic money and a bunch of other little grants that she spent her time applying for when she should have been on the practice field. Ha! You can always trust Roz Lynn Chapple to find where the truth is buried!

So I hope that Shannon has learned that if she hadn’t wasted all that time studying and applying for support she might just have won one of those mythical Full Rides and really earned our respect.

Too Late

I'm thinking that maybe I started this Facebook deal a little bit too late. I know I’ve been telling everyone that the idea was that I could get to know the people that read my blog, but that wasn’t the only reason I set up the account. Really what I wanted to do was get to know the new high school coach. He really is a bit of a dish and my daughter and all the other girls have been raving about him. So I thought I’d friend him on Facebook, send a few innuendo laden private messages, then post a picture or two of me flashing my stimulus packages, and hey presto! He’d be like every other soccer coach in the history of the beautiful game – putty in the hands of a loose living, morally bankrupt, middle age mom in her prime.

It was all going pretty well and I reckoned I had enough incriminating replies from him to ensure that my daughter was named team captain and started every game. But then the buzz-killing athletic director gets ideas above his pay grade and puts an end to free speech, free love and expensive mistakes. “No Facebook fraternizing with the students and parents” is the new rule at Stalag Westchester High. Of course the AD knows all about how new technology can land you in trouble as we all remember that time his plan to make the school secretary ‘howl like a wolf on heat’ became a little bit too public when he hit the “Reply All” button.

So the fun is over with the coach for the time being, but maybe I’ll get a chat with him at the meeting tonight. We are having a conference to sort out a few problems with the team. Apparently one of the kids on the roster is being bullied by a few of the others. Lots of name calling and posting of pictures shot in the locker room. The poor girl is a wreck and has taken to hurting herself. I can’t help but think that if we’d been able to keep an eye on these kid’s Facebook accounts one of us could have put a stop to it before it got out of hand.



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Seven Days Later

Well a full week has come and gone since national signing day and my eldest daughter has still not been committed to any particular institution. The reason for that is she is still weighing up her options and is playing one school off against another to try and tease out a little bit more financial support and some more assurances on playing time in her freshman year. It has got absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the nearest she came to an offer was a National Letter of Indifference from almost every school in the Midwest.

I hear that at the boy’s Academy team practices last Wednesday all the kids in the Class of 2010 were showing up in brand new regalia of the school they had signed for that day. Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, and Indiana were all represented. Fortunately my son’s t-shirt from the Frankenmuth Zhenders Chicken Frying School of Excellence was still in the laundry.

So, I’ve got to be honest and say that I’m a little bit concerned that my daughter will make the right decision and choose a school that reflects the amount of cash I’ve sunk into travel soccer over the years. I pray that we don’t end up like the poor kid on her team who ended up accepting a spot in a school that doesn’t even have a soccer program in what her mother calls an “educational decision”. There are some crazy-ass parents out there.

Which Team Are You On?

My youngest is in a little bit of a difficult situation at the moment. She played as a guest for a pretty prestigious team this past weekend and being surrounded by other good players seemed to bring out the best in her. The rest of the girls on her current team were really excited for her getting the chance to play with one of the big clubs and I think her coach thought that he must be doing something right to have one of his players invited to play with them. She was hoping that maybe she could tryout for this team in the summer but then her current coach said he’d be glad to sign a release for her if the big club wanted her now as he thought it was a great opportunity. That was music to the ears of the big club’s coach who has been on the lookout for a strong left sided player and he just happens to be the ODP coach for her age group so he’s a great guy to have on your side. The rest of the parents on the current team are sad to see her go but are pleased that it frees up more field time for some of the fringe players on our team and it shows the rest of the kids that it can be done. So where’s the problem? Well her dad (aka Attilla The Hun) has a hard and fast mindset that only liberal quitters leave a team in mid season and says he’s going to “teach her the meaning of the word commitment”.

Back In The Saddle

So I got a call out of the blue on Friday night asking me to ‘come out of retirement’ and sub-in on my girlfriend’s over 30 soccer team. She plays on a co-ed side called the Bengay Tigers in a 6v6 league which holds it’s games in a converted auto plant with a playing surface designed specifically to knock the crap out of aging knees. I didn’t need to be asked twice and before you knew it I had looked out all the essential equipment that a 48 year old, mother-of-three, soccer player needs: a pair of Adidas Sambas, a heavy-duty sports bra, and a ready supply of incontinence pads.

When I arrived the girls were already warming up leaving me on the bench with the guys as they tightened their knee braces, strapped their strapping, and filled their cups that runneth over. The heavy scent of menthol in the air brought back memories of the glory days when our star striker Gerry Attrick scored a last minute winner against Ludmuller Log And Lumber Liquidators in the final of the Detroit Narcotics Anonymous invitational. Then, just before kick off, there was one of those familiar screams of pain that let us all know that one of the guys had rubbed the Bengay a little bit too high up into his groin area.

The game itself was fine but the crowd was outrageous. The problem was that most of the players had brought their kids with them to watch. The little brats sat there on the sidelines shouting out instructions to us! Not only was that very distracting but what makes them such experts that they think they can tell us what to do? They also gave the referee a really hard time and blamed every player on the team for our problems except, of course, their own darling parents. There really is something disconcerting about listening to them disparaging our coach and you have to ask yourself where these kids get the idea that this is how you behave at the side of a soccer field?

Thanks!

Hey everyone, just want to give a little ‘thanks’ for the news that my son’s coach is going to be fine! He had a little lump on his right u-know-what but it turns out that it’s nothing to worry about. How cool is that?! So thanks to the docs for their prompt attention. Thanks also to our goalkeeper’s mom who first found the lump and ensured he got some early treatment.

State Of The Nation

In his State of the Nation speech last night President Obama outlined revolutionary plans to turn around the American economy. The under fire leader of the free world has challenged congress to come up with a bill to overcome the largest drain on the economy, the cost of which towers over the crisis in our financial institutions, the war in Iraq, and the bill to fund socialized medicine. Speaking with the fire and passion that propelled him into office, the President indicated how $97 billion dollars were squandered each and every working day as an army of anonymous delusional soccer parents and their mentally challenged coaches fought out an acrimonious on-line war using computerized soccer forums on their company dime. Mr. Obama noted that by simply eliminating the worst offenders the country could free up enough man hours to re-build the Egyptian pyramids as a tourist attraction in Flint, Michigan. It would also free up enough bandwidth on the internet to allow us to finally exploit the web for the purpose for which it was truly intended – selling porn to fat middle aged lonely sad fools without the embarrassment of having to visit one of those stores on the edge of town. Speaking in his response Republican Senator Attila The Hun said “Finally, this is the sort of brave, creative leadership we have been looking for from the President”.

Evaluations

Here in America a lot of parents are still finding their feet in the crazy world of youth soccer. Since I’ve been around the block a bit I thought that some of you newbies might benefit from my experience. So I’m pleased to present my easy interpretation guide to help you decipher your kid’s annual evaluation from your dedicated coach. Here is my ‘coach speak-to-real life’ translation phrase book for you:

Robust and strong in the tackle = Your kid is a thug.

The mainstay of our defense = Your kid is a psycho thug.

The first name on my team sheet every week = Your kid is the tallest on the roster.

Might benefit from additional coaching sessions = I think you guys have more disposable income that I could get a piece of.

One of my longer term prospects = Your kid is useless but his mom has a nice rack.

An essential part of the team chemistry = Thanks for all the drinks his father buys on trips out of town.

I haven’t determined his optimum playing position yet = I’m not sure how long after I have slept with the mom I have to wait before I can cut this kid.

A true utility player = We need to keep 18 kids on the roster to keep the fees for down for the good players.

Always boisterous and full of life = An annoying little shit.

Needs to work on her fitness = Your kid is one cheeseburger away from being moved to starting goalkeeper.

Great communication skills = I hope you never find out about the text messages.

A candidate for the Academy = We also take direct deposit.

Dealing well with the growth spurt = Plays like Bambi on ice.

Maturing into a well rounded asset to the team = I could get arrested for what I’m really thinking.

An excellent prospect = I’ve mixed your kid up with someone else.

A true two-footed player = Can’t kick with either foot.

Excels as the holding mid in a 3-5-2 playing interposer behind the creative generalissimo = Buy your snake oil here.

Cool Hand Luke

Parents of the Northern Kalamazoo Charlatans soccer club have been split into warring factions over how to address the actions of their former Director of Coaching, Luke Royalflush. The problems began in spring 2009 when the club’s treasurer, Richard Turpin, began to suspect that either he couldn’t count or American youth soccer was even more of a rip off than he had always suspected. His suspicions were further aroused when the DOC began showing up for the club’s infrequent practice sessions in a brand new Cadillac Escalade accompanied by an exotic dancer named Tipper Inergarterbelt, whom he introduced as the new Speed and Agility trainer. Matters came to a head when the club’s U15 girls reached the state cup final in spite of the DOC having been AWOL for 8 weeks. The team was coached in the final by a parent stand-in who was roundly criticized by the opposing coach for being ‘just a dad without any professional qualifications’ after the Charlatans kicked his professional ass 7-1 in a runaway victory.

Following the game the club wanted to mark the girl’s achievement by patronizing them with a commemorative t-shirt. It was then revealed that there wasn’t enough money in the club coffers to buy the t-shirts and that the DOC had absconded with the cash to feed his gambling habit.

At that point, in an act of unparalleled generosity, the founder of the Charlatans movement, Sandy Barmey, announced that he would fund the t-shirts entirely as a gift out of his own pocket, provided the NKC franchise was returned to him, the parents signed a waiver giving up any rights to legal action against him, each parent wrote a glowing testimonial about his coaching methods, and the local media left the story well alone.

DOC Royalflush was finally traced to a room on the 17th floor of a Las Vegas hotel above the casino where he had gambled the dues paid by each of these poor deprived kids. At the time the police broke down his hotel room door Royalflush was in the company of a cocktail waitress named Mandy Melons with a mountain of freshly cut cocaine on the coffee table and hundreds of thousands of dollars of the money he had won strewn around the room. Royalflush himself was naked, on the balcony of the room, screaming “King of the World!” and “You can shove your Cryuff Turns up your bottom!”

Sandy Barmey immediately released a 50,000 word press release in which he predicted that the USA would win the 2014 world cup now that one of the “finest trainers in soccer” was back leading our kids into the next generation. Team manager Tina Overbearing suggested that the money Royalflush had won rightfully belonged to the club and should be split evenly amongst the parents with the exception of Nicole Pauper’s mom who did not have her dues up to date. Rebel parent Tony Holierthanthou suggested that this was not the type of role model we wanted for our kids. Cocktail waitress Mandy Melons claimed she had placed the winning bet and the money was hers. Nicolas Synical wanted to let the money go and use the experience as a “lesson of the evils of the Charlatans approach to soccer which I have been opposed to for 20 years”.

The matter is now in the hands of circuit court Judge George Easilyswayed who will try to determine if anyone comes out of the whole sordid matter looking less of a rat fink than anyone else. All the concerned adults will attend his courtroom on 15th May 2010. A pick up soccer tournament will be held on fields adjacent to the courtroom to keep the kids occupied while the court is in session. The kids will while away the hours with a ball at their feet whilst the adults play out the real fun and games.

Class Act Meets Crass Act

The inexorable march of litigation into youth sports took another giant step forward yesterday when Halfway Down Highschool in Ohio announced that it had retained the legal firm of Sue, Cheatem & Spend to represent it in it’s on going battle with the Ohio State High School Sports Inflexibility Counsel. The law firm – whose Latin motto is Eef Gloveicus Non-Fiticus Thou Mustus Acquiticus – will appoint enfant terrible, Robert Slimeball, as lead counsel. Slimeball, who studied at the prestigious Institute Of Defending The Indefensible, will assume his duties as soon as he can complete his current work representing Roman Polanski.

Halfway Down is a private organization vaguely described as a ‘school’ in its glossy sales brochure. Students typically pay exorbitant fees to be able to shield themselves from the sort of poor life lessons they would receive in the public system. Honor, integrity, acceptance of authority, and not giving your trophy back until the law intervenes are the values of the school.

The case arises out of the OSHSSIC’s ruling that HD fielded an ineligible player in final of the Division VI Parental Bragging Rights soccer tournament. HD won a thrilling, tightly contested final 17-0 against Hapless Public in a match played in front of a record crowd of 13 spectators and two dogs.

With the trophy presented and the game forgotten about 15 minutes after the final whistle, HD’s marquee player was already at the airport departure gate on her way back to Florida’s Hotshot Soccer School when a Hapless Public parent started typing a venomous anonymous allegation of ineligibility to the local gutter press.

HD’s position is that the player was at all times enrolled with the school in a distance learning capacity by virtue of the fact that she was in constant contact with her classmates via the MySpace social networking website. They point out that by playing regularly for the Florida Hotshots she was in fact recovering from an injury, and medical records do indeed suggest that she was rehabbing a severely bruised ego picked up when the school lost in the final last year. School superintendent Jack Daniels commented “Having been in rehab for many years myself I understand the importance of these issues. I’d just like to point out that we won the game on the field and nothing else matters including my inability to read the rules. It is unfortunate that this young lady has been singled out. Nobody said a damn thing about the three girls playing up front for us who actually graduated in 1997, the goalie who played after we lowered our minimum pass rate requirements, or the long haired central defender who is actually a dude with his junk tucked away where the sun don’t shine”.

Speaking for OSHSSIC, director of public relations Tony Selfimportant pointed out; “The counsel is not here to assist in the development of the game in general or to encourage class acts/genuine prospects like this young player. Neither are we here to support the efforts of a youth soccer team who made a genuine attempt to excel in a sporting event. The counsel exists to demonstrate to the kids the level of incompetence which exists amongst the adults who manage their endeavors.”

The case will be heard in the Ohio Court of Frivolous Wastes Of Time and is expected to run for much longer than anyone really cares.

Freedom Of Information

I’m a bit pissed off with my daughter’s club at the moment. It seems they want to bring in some new rule that the team’s monthly accounts should only show the income itself and not who is making the payments. Apparently some Prius driving, socialist parent with an Obama fetish and an actual belief in global warming, wants there to be no indication of which players are on scholarship! It seems that little Miss Bleeding Heart thinks that the paupers will be embarrassed if everyone knows that their tab is being picked up for them. WTF is that all about? My kid is on scholarship and I’m proud of it! If no one knows that my kid is on free ride even though I can drive to out-of-state tournaments in my Cadillac Escalade and stay in much better hotels than the rest of the team riff-raff, then how are they going to know that my kid is only on ‘scholarship’ because she’s such a hotshot that the team recruited her with the promise that the rest of the mug parents would pay her way?

And The Academy Award Goes To.....

For nearly 20 years the coach’s association Soccer Amerika Direct (SAD) has been promoting the game to very little effect here in the USA. In January of each year the group’s senior members, known as Fellows Of Old Long Standing (FOOLS), come together to bestow their annual award to the most encouraging trend in the North American game.

This year’s recipient has it’s basis in the professional clubs of Europe who launched this initiative as the panacea to all the game’s ills: here was the silver bullet which would drive back the hordes of joyous young players flooding into their game from Africa, and stop dead in their tracks those unscrupulous agents who did nothing to develop the players beyond parting them from 20% of their outrageous signing on fees.

Not wanting to miss out on a poorly thought out idea the principles were rapidly adopted here in the USA, where they were introduced in a uniquely American half-assed, incompetent way. The initiative was quickly taken up by those clubs who had been excluded from the original program by virtue of their long track record of not having a clue what they were on about, and the profile of the game was raised as more and more parents could be fleeced out of an ever larger part of their shrinking income to fund this ‘next big thing’. Soccer Amerika Direct has marveled at the way our coaches have packaged this idea and sold it to an unsuspecting public to the point where the parents of kids as young as 4 years old have been seduced by this single word miracle.

It is therefore with great pleasure that our SADFOOLS bestow their 2010 lifetime achievement award to the abuse, misuse and blatant commercial exploitation of the word ACADEMY.

The Final Straight

So, 2010 brings the last few months of my eldest daughter’s high school career! Just a spring season of soccer to go and then it’s off to college for the twisted little cow. This week we’ve been mulling over another college offer. Well, it’s not really an offer, it’s more of a sales brochure that we received in the mail, but we’re calling it another offer whenever I have to talk to any of those skanky bitch moms on her travel team.

I’m not sure that this particular college is right for her however. It’s a Division III school and since division three doesn’t have sports scholarships I can’t even pretend she’s getting a full ride for soccer the way lots of her teammates do with the Div I & II schools. Plus, it might not be a very good fit for her academically. She wants to study Teen Sexual Health and Contraception with a view to becoming a family planning counselor, but they don’t offer that course at Our Immaculate Mary College of The Blessed Maiden in Boston.

The soccer program doesn’t look too great either. The team’s position in the RLCC (Recovering Lapsed Catholics Conference) is under threat after the coach of the team that they knocked out in the first round of the post-season lodged an official protest. Apparently he is claiming that our team had too many players on the field by virtue of the fact that three of the girls on our team are pregnant. Our coach says that there is no case to answer because life doesn’t begin at conception. I was a bit surprised to hear him say that but it does at least show that he has the winning mentality of a soccer coach who can successfully abandon his principles for a deep run into the playoffs.

Plus we don’t know how long Coach Yerkov is going to be there. All is not well between him and the Athletic Director, Cardinal Fiddleabout, whom the coach accuses of deliberately knocking the three girls up with a view to undermining his position. The AD has countered with an accusation that the coach had sex in the port-a-john at the side of the field during the half-time break when we were 7-0 up against Holy Redeemer Blessed Are The Meek For They Always Lose In The PK Shootout College For The Bewildered. When it was pointed out to the AD that the coach was in there on his own he replied “Exactly my point.”

So we have lots to think about: the upcoming soccer season, prom, graduation, and most importantly, how in the name of god am I going to make it look like the college she ends up attending is the one she wanted to go to all along?