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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Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
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.
Find me on Facebook.
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.
Find me on Facebook.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
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”.
Find me on Facebook.
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”.
Find me on Facebook.
Friday, May 7, 2010
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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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.
Find me on Facebook.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
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.
Find me on Facebook.
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.
Find me on Facebook.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
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
Find me on Facebook.
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
Find me on Facebook.
Friday, April 9, 2010
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.
Find me on Facebook.
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.
Find me on Facebook.
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