Soccer and Finality

For the foreseeable future, these will be my last full updates while in New Orleans. Someone asked me yesterday how long I've been here. "Nine weeks", I told them. They then asked when I go home. "One week", I told them. I paused to think then added, "This time next week, I'll be home". Saying it made it sink in. The feeling is still sinking but I don't think it will fully settle until I am actually leaving this place.


SOCCER CAMP

Last week was a busy one. A few weeks ago, I inquired about an advertised soccer clinic that was taking place on base. I offered to help and was told someone would contact me about opportunities. I should have known that just because I am dealing with military personnel doesn't mean that I am not dealing with people. That is to say, they are just as forgetful as anyone else and so it was no surprise that on Monday, three hours before the scheduled start of the camp, I was frantically calling to get the details on the event. Turns out, the heat index of 106 was too extreme for us to have camp so Day One was cancelled.

Day Two went off without a hitch. With the camp moved indoors, about 40 kids ranging from age 6 to 12 showed up. I arrived thinking my role would be something along the lines of assistant. If any odd jobs needed doing, I would be there. Turns out, I was one of two adult volunteers. Coach Jimmy introduced himself and we devised a plan for the day. We would warm the group up and then split them into a younger and older groups. Within the older group, we would split again based upon skill level. Jimmy would take his son's group (the more advanced group) and I would coach the intermediate team. My group had 12 campers. We worked on dribbling drills for the day and then played a couple of games before releasing the campers for the day. This came after my group decided upon a team name for the week. For whatever reason, they decided to name my (Coach Rocky's) group the Rockies. Go figure.

On Day Three, about half the number of campers showed up. I combined the two older groups and we worked on passing drills. Coach Jimmy didn't show up. Neither did his son.

Day Four, Coach Jimmy was again absent. I worked the campers on shooting and we played some fun games before I released them to their waiting parents. For some reason, the parents all decided to wait on the bleachers and watch. This was fine by me except for what was the unintentional side-effect of making me very nervous. Its one thing to coach a bunch of kids buts it another thing entirely to coach them while their parents are watching. One wrong move on my part could have sent a flustered adult running onto the gym floor to rescue his or her child. Yikes.

Day Five was games day. In what was a serious gamble on my part, I decided to have the kids play "crossfire" wherein I kick balls at them in an attempt to get them "out". If you are "out", you join the kicker and aim for the remaining campers. Again, one wrong move could have sent a camper face-planting into the unforgiving gym floor but I was starved for activities so I worked with what I had. At the end of the day, I gave the remaining campers (there were only about 9 total at this point) my "what soccer has done for me/can do for me" speech. I told them I got to go to Germany to see World Cup. "You mean you played in the World Cup? Which team were you on?". Ahhh, the innocence of children. Certificates were distributed, photos were taken and snacks were devoured. Thus was the end of soccer camp. It went pretty well, I think. I don't think I did too bad for getting thrown in the mix, the way I did.