Fall Soccer- Kaden and I

As much as I didn't want to, I ended up coaching Kaden's team again.  I told Alex that I wouldn't do it if I had a few of those same kids on my team again.  So they made sure that didn't happen.  I helped evaluate the boys at tryouts and I really just wanted Kaden on the claret team with Ian as the coach so I wouldn't have to worry anymore.  But he wasn't quite as good as some of the other boys.  I figured it would be good for him to take another year to continue to develop as a player and build confidence being one of the best on the cobalt team.  I purchased a team bench, keeper gloves, picked up corner flags from the club.  I was all in.  And I had some decent players on my team and I was excited.  But a couple players didn't want to play Fall, just Spring.  And another one dropped soccer altogether.  My team was getting smaller and the other cobalt team was getting bigger (the guy that agreed to coach had recruited a few neighbor kids to play) so we tried to move a couple players from his team over to my team.  Basically they refused.  One of them came to one practice and then insisted they go back to the guy's team.  The other one decided not to play in the Fall (her reasoning was they didn't end up moving to IF from Poky so it was too far, understandable).  But it was a little hard not to take it personally.  I knew my team was the better team.  I had helped put these teams together after all.  And I was working closely with Ian, who is a great coach.  So the only reason I could think that they didn't want to be on my team is that I'm a woman, and I told them straight up that I am a volunteer coach with little experience.  We asked one more kid to move to my team and the dad refused because of where we practice... So I just got really frustrated.  We started the season with only 7 players.  We play 7 on the field.  But I didn't mind taking substitute players to my games, especially since most of those players were decent.  I had one more added last minute but he was not super reliable (big family, lots of kids, I get it).  I continued to have subs come help until the last couple games we had one more kid added and he was a good player so that was fun.  

We had a couple games in Jackson on a weekend and I invited Paxton and Cooper to come play.  They are both 3rd graders and play football and basketball with Kaden, but they were born in 2015 so they are a year behind Kaden in soccer.  They had fun together though.

The coaches put together an adult team for the spooky sixes tournament that I was playing on.  And Kylee and Sadie were both playing so I didn't sign up my team.  But Ian's team played and he asked me if Kaden could play with him at the last minute.  I was going to be there all day anyway, so why not.  This is what the day looked like.

As crazy as it is, it was a lot of fun.  We had beautiful weather, which is lucky.  And though it was a long day, I had so much fun.  I got to watch my kids and I got to play.  I even got the hang of defense by the last game and we won (we lost the first two).  Kylee played with some of her club team.  They had two teams.  Kylee's team won the first game and they played again in the final and Kylee lost that one.  I can't remember but I think Averi had to switch teams?  Someone switched teams.  Anyway, Kaden didn't make it to the final and I sent him home with Ryan.  Kylee and I were there until late, as you can tell from the picture.  It was a fun way to end the Fall season.