A Tale of Two Seasons

I'm writing this today [now] before the universe realizes that my son's school soccer team is winning games and decides it needs to set things right in the world of parochial league athletics and smack a big ol' loss down on top of their heads. Brief back story - Owen spent the last two winters playing basketball for his school, and in those two seasons the teams he played on won a total of 2 games.  And no, I didn't leave off a zero. Two games - one in each season.  And it was more than just losing so many games, it was the fact that many of them were lost in a crushing and humiliating manner.   Crushing and humiliating. Both at once.  To add to the good times that were parochial league basketball, Joel coached one of those seasons. It's not much of an over-exaggeration when I tell you that parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and even friends and neighbors of players all crossed the court at the end of one game or another to give Joel and his co-coach feedback on their coaching abilities. If you want to see people's frustrated true colors, coach a team of kids through a losing season of basketball.*  And so it was that basketball provided us with an abundance of character building life lessons about losing - with grace.  Yes, losing with grace (I always forget that part). Also, lesson learned.

But now we are in soccer season, and because we're playing in the same parochial school league we find ourselves facing off against those same schools who beat us so resoundingly during the dark days of basketball (our sport season of discontent, if you will).  The biggest difference between soccer season and basketball season is that we are winning game[s].  Winning!!  The school we played yesterday (and beat by a score of 9-0)  is one that fields a notorious "no mercy" basketball team, so it was more than a little satisfying when Joel told me that towards the end of the game their coach was voicing his dissatisfaction in what he saw as an attempt by our team to run up the score, which Joel and his co-coach were most certainly trying  not to do (sincerely, they don't coach that way).  At the end of the game, as I watched the parents from the other school fold up their chairs and gather up their belongings, I so wanted to yell across the field at them "That was for basketball!" - but I didn't. Instead, I walked to my car and drove the short distance home feeling like a bit of parochial league prairie justice had just been served.  And for the record, I understand that it's not supposed to be about whether you win or lose, the focus is supposed to be on how you play the game, but if you play the game and you win, well that's waaay better than playing the game and losing. Trust me, I've spent enough time on both sides of the scoreboard to know.

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*That air of bitterness you may be detecting is all mine by the way, not Joel's.  He's a lighter happier soul who moves more freely in the world , unfettered (as I am) with memories of the [perceived] wrongs that I have carefully catalogued ponder from time to time.