I’m fortunate enough in my life to be surrounded by all sorts of people who compliment my personality. One friend, for example, is practically my personal lemonade stand; filled with the idea that life’s lemons aren’t the end of the situation. Having people like that around allows me to remember that a bad situation certainly doesn’t need to remain that way. Another person in my life-one I’ve been around for close to a decade now–always sees the challenge in every situation and believes that we have it in ourselves to rise to any challenge. That brings me to my current challenge.
I coach flag football, a game that is predicated on speed and experience. Among others, I coach a 6-7 yr old team that is filled with kids who’ve never played and or never played at the 6-7 level. In fact, out of the 10 kids on the roster, only 1 played 6-7 last year and only 5 ever played football before. We had our first scrimmage today and learned a lot from the experience. We learned that 4-5 is not even close to 6-7, especially in terms of the rules. 6-7 includes elements of the game like blitzing and passing takes on legitimacy. My players found out about those differences real fast and two were even reduced to tears.
There are two ways to take this: 1. Its gonna be a long dark season of beat downs. 2. This situation can be Belichecked. We can find a way to make the players feel comfortable, gain confidence, and find some enjoyment in the game and the system–all the while squeaking out some wins.
Based on the influences in my life, I’m going with choice #2. I enjoy the challenge of finding ways to make these kids both happy and competitive. It isn’t going to be easy, but if I can get the best out of each of them, then there can be success..
Some Thoughts:
- My sleep-deprived brain came up with some nonsense last night, but I think it is a good thing. Gotta empty out the brain once in a while to make room for new ideas.
- Tonight wasn’t much better.
- Watched Deep Impact again today. Morgan Freeman makes for a very charismatic president.