Good Things

This spring in spring soccer, C's team was pretty good. Like last year, they did not have any losses in their regular season (but blew it in the first game of the playoffs). Unlike last year, C did not break his arm. Phew, phew, and phew on that one as sailing season has started and he's trying to position himself for the high school team.

Many of the same kids were on the team this year, but there were some new ones, too, including a boy who has cerebral palsy. T could not run as fast as the other kids, could not pass with the same quickness, but never expected to be treated any differently. He never, ever gave up in any game. He'd get knocked down, and get right back up. No whining, just kept going. I could learn some things from that kid.

In spite of his perseverance and determination, T did not have a goal during the season. He wanted one, and the other boys knew that. The other boys decided it needed to be a team effort. They didn't make a fuss about it, didn't talk about it, just decided to do it. In the last half of the last game of the regular season, up by just one, the rest of the team worked their butts off to try to get T a goal. They covered and passed, and gave up chances to score themselves. The played hard defense on the other end of the field to get it back down to T as quickly and as often as possible. The whole team wanted T to have a goal. By the end of the game as the parents realized what was going on, the whole field wanted T to have that goal - but the other team also seemed to know that the boys *didn't* want them to just give T a goal. Know what I mean? There was some hard play going on out there. Nobody was giving up.

Alas, it was not to be. It was an exciting, heartwarming and heart breaking 30 minutes of adolescent soccer. T did not get a goal in the end - but it felt like the team got so much more than a mark in the win column that day.