Flametoad

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not particularly inclined toward sports. I was a sickly kid growing up, and never particularly athletic. About the only sport I took a shine toward is skiing, which is a shame since I live in central Texas. I’ll enjoy a game of baseball or football if it’s on the tv, but with only rare exceptions do I ever go out of my way to watch sports.

Yet, there’s something about being a parent that moves us beyond our usual boundaries. We find ourselves doing things we never would have imagined doing. From changing dirty diapers and cleaning up vomit to playing “family of snails” (yes, that is a game in our house), parenthood pushes us in surprising directions. For instance, Tadpole 1 is in a pre-K soccer league. He loves being outdoors, and is generally a pretty active kid. At the same time, his social interaction leaves something to be desired (he’s my son, after all) and we figured some team skills wouldn’t hurt. That’s all well and good so far, right?

What absolutely fries the minds of people who know me is that I coached the team’s first game. You see, it turns out that their regular coach couldn’t be there that day and asked for a volunteer. The other parents were just standing around avoiding eye contact, so I stepped up. I aspire to be the kind of person who does what needs to be done. Sometimes its darn hard. Coaching a team of anything is so far out of my character that my parents and friends laughed out loud when I broke the news. No kidding!

Actually, we were scheduled for a game the weekend before, and I figured I could learn the ropes before my weekend came up. Unfortunately, that game was cancelled then rescheduled for my weekend. So instead of one game, I coached two games back to back. All in all I think things went well. Surprisingly well, even. You can see from the photos in this post that the kids all had a great time, and so did their coach. Maybe it’s time to renegotiate some borders.