At some point frustration just boils over. It doesn’t necessarily come from one thing or even two, but once it does it isn’t long before I’m some blog bound version of Lewis Black just spitting vitriolic verse after vitriolic verse with no end in sight. The tipping point came near half-time in the pee wee tackle football game when my son, who’d only been a part of less than a handful of snaps till then, trotted off the field after a on-sides kick and fixed me with ‘the look’. I’m intimately familiar with the look. I taught it to him. Its the look that says, WTF am I even doing here, and please realize that from this moment forward I fully intend to check the F out. Moments later a teammate who does get minutes came over to the sideline, motioned for my son to get up and then proceeded to take his seat.
I was done.
Then my boys told me they were done. Looks like both of my football age kids have decided to take a break from tackle next fall season. They explained that the issue was boredom and lack of enjoyment. Both recognize that there is little to know chance of them playing on the offensive side of the ball except as linemen. Neither are over 68 lbs, so even that proposition isn’t going to yield much success or joy for the sport. In fact, the joy for the sport has largely been killed off in both boys. I’m not surprised. They spend the majority of their practices standing in a straight line, watching the starters practice, or getting pummeled by linemen at least twice their size. This is hardly acceptable, but even less so when you consider that we have a roster no larger than 18 and most practices and games we only have 16 players and start 11. Of the remaining 5 non-starters, only two get the minimum or near minimum in snaps allowed for players (5). The other three see limited and situational action–mostly as linemen. In fact, unless you’re a starter you’re only ever coming in on offense as a lineman. My boys come in on defense as cornerbacks, and the older one, who isn’t much for tackling, doesn’t see hardly any time at all on that side of the ball either. In fact, only 2-3 players ever touch the ball on offense. It has become so predictable that this last game I watched the opposing coach point out the offensive play while we were breaking huddle. He did this multiple times. So, is it really a surprise when they decide football is crap and they ought to stick to soccer where they can get minutes and have practices that actually challenge then within their zone of proximal development?
Now its a rant.
Meanwhile I am here fighting a kitten invasion. I didn’t realize how much of a cat person I wasn’t until I had five. It is beyond reasonable to have that much raw kitten energy (and training ‘accidents’) under one roof. It is clearly time for these little guys and gals to move on before they decide this is gonna be their home for ever.
I could go on, but I promised I’d keep these blogs to ten minutes…