Life Lessons

Esteban made the high school soccer team this year. It proved to be an interesting experience for him.

Here are some comparisons between competitive soccer and high school (JV) soccer.

Competitive soccer: Teams play according to age and only play other teams in the same age bracket.
JV soccer: They played with older players and against older players.

Competitive soccer: The best players play the majority of the time.
JV soccer: Equal playing time. Each player played 20 minutes  per half whether they did good or bad.

Competitive soccer: Este's team dominated.
JV soccer: They were the freshman. Need I say more?

It took Este some time and frustration to learn a new coaching system with different style of plays. He overcame injury, a scoring slump, and lots of disappointment. It was good for him. It is hard to see your kid struggle but, in the end life isn't always easy and you don't always get what you want or what you think you may deserve. Life is a lesson to be learned and some of those lessons are best learned on the field.

What do you do when life doesn't go as you had planned?

You keep your eye on the goal and continue to push in the right direction.

By the end of the season he was doing great. His high school team barely made the playoffs. Nobody gave them a chance to win a single game. They went into every playoff game as the underdogs and came out of every the game victors. Their perfect playoff record sent them to the state championship game at Rio Tinto (MLS) Stadium in Salt Lake City. 

I don't have picture of that game. In fact, Aaron and I didn't even go. You see, as a freshman Este wasn't going to play. He didn't even dress in uniform for the game. He was with the team but only as support. That night Ethan was playing in his first football scrimmage. Instead of sitting with a big crowd in a huge stadium cheering for the state championship, we sat alone in a small crowd that didn't even cheer watching Ethan play football for the first time.

We weren't at the soccer game to watch our team place the winning header into the goal during overtime. We weren't there as the crowd went wild for our underdogs who were crowned state champions. We weren't there as they hoisted the trophy over their heads. We were where we needed to be. 

Sports is an interesting things. It builds self esteem. It teaches kids that they can do hard things. It teaches them to work together as a team. It teaches them to pick yourself up and keep on going. It teaches that anything is possible.