The ref blew the final whistle and the game was now over. We had done it. All of our hard work all season was finally paying off. We were officially in the playoffs.
At that moment, I get tackled by 15 overjoyed kids.
Unfortunately, this wasn't the NBA Finals, the World Series or even the World Cup. Instead, this was Recreational Soccer for seven and eight year old boys. And somehow I was the coach that was leading them to victory. I wasn't even getting paid.
As a midfielder for my college's Division II Soccer Team I knew a lot about the game. I was now in my 3rd season on the team and was in the middle of my junior year. So when I saw a posting in the service learning office at school about a local youth team needing a coach, I jumped at the opportunity.
The situation was pretty simple. I would be required to attend practice once a week in the evenings, and games every other weekend. In return I would receive an extra credit hour at the end of the semester. I just had to write a bull shit paper talking about how rewarding the experience was.
It would have been a great job if it wasn't for the parents. They are absolutely ruthless. If another player even touched their kid they would go in a tirade, yelling and screaming. It didn't matter if it was the ref, another parents or their favorite target, me.
After wrestling the kids off of my back, I managed to stand up. If you saw the dirt and grass stains on my dumb looking blue coach's shirt you would have thought I played in the game. All I needed was to get away from the parents, go home and take a nice long shower. After saying my goodbyes, I took off.
Walking through the parking lot away from the field, a red Dodge Caravan pulled up next to me.
"Hey Pete, you want a ride?" I turned to see Mrs. Sullivan sticking her head out of the driver's side window. Her son, Mark, was one of my players.
The cloud were getting pretty dark, and it looked like it was about to pour. Normally, I couldn't deal with any more parents once a game was over. But in this case the ride meant not having to walk almost 2 miles back to my dorm room in the rain. I reluctantly accepted and got into the minivan's passenger seat. No one was in the backseat. It looked like Mark had gone with a couple of the other moms to get some celebratory post game pizza.
"Good game out there coach. I feel like we could win the district championship."
Much less enthusiastically I replied, "Yeah, we definitely have a shot."
Mrs. Sullivan looked over at me and smiled. She was actually one of the more attractive moms of the kids on the team. Her wavy dirty blonde hair was pulled back to avoid hiding her face's soft features. I would guess she was in her early 40's. You could tell that fitness was important to her. Her life most likely revolved around watching the kids and going to the gym. Her best feature was by far her legs. They were long and toned. As long as it was warm out, as it was that day, she would usually wear short khaki shorts. Above, a black tank top with spaghetti straps covered her large breasts. Standing on the sidelines, I would often turn to the stands during breaks in play, just to catch a glimpse of her.
We exchanged some light conversation as we pulled out of the parking lot. She was asking me about school mostly. Then all of a sudden out of her mouth came just what I expected.
"Coach, I wanted to talk to you about Mark."
I should have known better. That's all parents ever want to talk about. God forbid a parent would ask me how I did on my last Economics test, or care how I spent my free time away from the field. But Mrs. Sullivan was smart. She knew I would be trapped in the car and that I would be forced to have the conversation with her.
"Sure Mrs. Sullivan. What can I do for you?"
"Well Pete, I wanted to talk to you about Mark's playing time." Wow that was a shocker, I thought. Every parent is either concerned about their kid's lack of time on the field or their kid getting hurt. "It's just that he's one of the better players on the team and he deserves a chance to show it." The truth was that Mark was mediocre at best, but I never had to heart to tell parents to their face that their son sucks.
