Three teams worth of a flag football season is coming to an end. The last games are tomorrow and saturday. Having my littlest Toms play to the next age group was a good idea. He was challenged by the league and had to learn how to move and juke in a way that 4-5 never required. Offensively he stands second on a very talented team in rushing touchdowns. Defensively he needs a lot of work. The five really shows on D, and that’s to be expected. Good D requires a level of practice and repetition he hasn’t had a chance to achieve. Next year he’s going to be in full Beast Mode on D. In this last game I expect to see him turn it up on offense and try to capture one of the three big awards for the season. He’s only got a outside shot, but even getting close is a big deal. Some of these kids–the ones in line for the awards are 8 or almost there and here he is a five year old trying to compete and lead on a one loss team. Nice.
8-9 is a similar situation. My seven year old played up and regrets it at times–so much so that he decided to play 6-7 soccer just for a chance to be utterly dominant again. He’s been dominant at times on a very good squad about to put their perfect record on the line in a double header this saturday. I don’t know about his award chances. Like I said, he’s dominant at times and background noise at others. His mind goes so fast sometimes that I wonder if he moves past the game while he’s still playing it.
10-12 is a hot mess. I started this blog talking about a one loss team and I’m going to end it talking about a one win team. Heading into tomorrow we’ve only managed to win a single game. It isn’t easy dealing with the size differential, but the lack of practice and energy really killed us. I suppose the worst part of it all is that we remain the only team in the league that doesn’t play starters. We put 5 kids on one side and 5 on the other side and go. Everyone plays equal minutes. Tomorrow I’m going to try it the way the other coaches do. I’m going to see what it looks like and how we do and how the players react. I want to learn as much as I can for the next season.
Some Thoughts:
- Bryan passed away. Those of you who read the blog are aware of my connection with him. I’m pretty numb at this point. The brevity of human life is at once wondrous, beautiful, and disturbing.