November 17th

The waitress placed two mugs of hot chocolate on the table, collected our plates and walked away.

Louis was studying the menu. “That was a fantastic meal. I love this place, I think I could eat anything on the menu here. I mean I haven’t eaten everything, but I bet if I ordered from this place every night until I had finished the entire menu, I think I would be happy with the outcome”. We were at Bens Diner, clearly one of his favorites.

“Really, that’s quite a statement. I do think you would be about 10 pounds heavier by the end though.” I replied.

“Yeah, it’s not like a wise health choice, not something I am actually going to do, but that doesn't make the statement any less true. So, what are you up to lately besides work?”

“Just finishing off a fall recreational soccer season. Y’know you should come back we could coach a team together for once.”

“Ha! Yeah no, as soon as my daughters decided they were done, my time was up. What are you coaching?”

“U10 Girls”

“Ah, so did you win it all?”

“Uh, no. I am horrible with that age group, yeah, definitely not the King of U10”

“Interesting, you did quite well in U12 and U14. U10 is definitely unique, like herding squirrels sometimes, depends on the players you have. Coaching 8 and 9 year olds, I never figured it out.”

“I coach U10 because they are always short on coaches and its fun generally,” I replied.

Louis shrugged, “Well at least you enjoy it, I mean you have to enjoy something about it if you lose all the time.”

“They gave me All Stars this year.”

Louis was surprised. “Really? Wow! I only got All Stars once and it was because literally no one else signed up.”

“Well, yeah, I have a feeling, it’s uh, the same story this year. I don’t think anyone signed up.”

“Ah, well you get it when you get it I guess. Which division did they give you?”

“Flight 3 Girls U10”

“So they give the perennial loser in U10, what else, a U10 team for All Stars.”

“I said I would take whatever, and they game me U10. I'm up for it.”
“I had this nostalgic moment last winter. I went to an All Star game, I had not been to one in a couple years. It was in the afternoon on a weekend in February.
"I'm driving over, the sun is lower on the horizon, its winter, not a lot of people on the road. I get to the school were the game is. The grass is brown and dormant. The only people there are going to this All Star game. There's this lonely rugged winter vibe to everything.
“If you are a quarter of a mile away, out of ear shot of the game, it’s just another cold day in the middle of winter. But on those fields it’s happening.
“Budding soccer players leaving it all out there. You can see the depth of their emotion in their faces as they’re playing. You can see the desire, the intensity there. The majority, they’re rec players, haven’t been jaded by playing and practicing for months on end on a club team.
“I hadn't been to an All Star game in a couple years. I was impressed by these players and their determination. I am thinking to myself, I’d like to captain a ship and see what I could do with an All Star team. Y’know, see if I could progress a group of motivated little engines that can a little further.
" So I decided, next chance I got, I would do All Stars. The fact that it is a U10 team, where I basically stink as a coach, makes it all the more intriguing.”

“Hm, ok, I like that.” Louis replied. “But you know, your parents on this U10 team probably wouldn't be too excited to find out you’re captain loser when it comes to coaching U10. I mean you have to figure out a way to win with your cartoon characters now.”

I laughed in agreement, “Yeah, well unfortunately for them, no one else applied for the zero salary All Star Coach job.”

Louis nodded knowingly as he laughed. “Let’s head out, you ready?”

“Yeah, let's go”

We stepped out of the diner and sent one another off with a Thanksgiving salutation. I didn't see Louis much any more and I thoroughly enjoyed it when we got together.

The conversation did leave me with a realization though. This time I couldn't end up coaching a losing U10 season.

My hope was that I could make this season different by getting the right players in the All Star draft. I had to start scouting immediately.

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Scouts Honor

NOVEMBER 26TH

The list of available players was open on my computer. I had a break in work and decided today would be the start of scouting.

I thought I knew the teams in the league pretty well, but that was obviously false. I didn't recognize two thirds of the names on the list.

The team I was coaching would be a flight 3 team, which meant the players that I was scouting were the supporting actors on their teams. That added to the experience for me, I was welcoming the challenge.

Scouting rec youth soccer players is an absolute blast. At U12 and U14 you tend to see some great players that were still surprisingly humble.

At U10 it is almost like no two players are the same. You always came across players with these unique personalities. It was a chance to see some of the greatest characters on the planet just being themselves.

The way the players were spread out on the various teams, I could tell I wouldn't have enough time to go to all of their games. I needed to look at the players that would have the biggest possible impact first.

There was one team that I knew I had to scout though. They were at the top of the standings and I didn't know any of the players on the team.

My team played at the exact same time as them on different fields the rest of the season. I could tell the only way I was going to see the team was to go to their practice.

The coach was Paul Morris. That made things a little awkward. We played against each other in the past only once. He was relatively subdued, quite mellow. We spoke for a moment before the game. I thought the conversation was positive and ended well. The game was a close one goal affair.

I sent him an email several months after our game and he never replied. It seemed weird to me. I followed up with a phone call a few weeks later. Straight to voicemail, where I left a message, but again, he never responded. Maybe he didn't like me?

Morris' team was in first place, so it was possible to think that I was going to his practice to scout his team for a future game. That fact combined with the weird line of communication made me feel it was best to go undetected while I was at his practice.

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Nitro

NOVEMBER 26TH

I got to the practice field early. I was hoping to park in the parking lot on the hill above the field and just watch proceedings from my car.

A small grove of pine trees on the hill side leading down to the field made that impossible. Every other line of sight put me in a position where I was going to be noticed.

I grabbed a lawn chair from my car and headed into the grove of pine trees on the hillside. It was dark and I made sure that no one was nearby as I slipped into the small cluster of trees.

I managed to find a spot that allowed me to see the field clearly while still being hidden by the low hanging branches of the trees. Yes it was too much and it felt completely ridiculous.

The practice started and I began glancing at the list of players on the team, attempting to match them up with their names. Player ability was the only thing I had at my disposal to put a name with a player.

Throughout the practice one player was standing out consistently. She was short, compared with her teammates, but she was absolutely blasting the ball every time she kicked it.

It wasn't necessarily helpful or within the scope of the activity at the given moment, but she was undeterred. The ball was going to suffer a severe beating at this practice courtesy of her right foot.

I was intrigued. She was rather small but she was consistently kicking the ball with minimal backlift and she was getting it up in the air.

The final scrimmage portion of the practice started. There were two flight 1 All Star players and two flight 3 All Star players on this team’s roster.

As the scrimmage progressed it was obvious only one of the top flight players was present. But I was having a hard time identifying the two flight 3 players. Of course I was mainly interested in the short nitro leg kicker.

Then came the moment that gave me pause. Nitro kicker had been playing upfield as an attacker, but she decided to come back and help out on defense. The ball bounced to her and she was facing her own goal.

Following her plan for the day, as the ball arrived, she promptly blasted it in to her own goal. Nitro would go on in that scrimmage and score another blast of a goal in her own net.

I was laughing when the second one went in. It was pretty much the expectation for a rec U10 practice, everything advertised and worth the price of admission.

I had a bit of a dilemma to resolve. Nitro could kick the ball very well for a player that was listed in Flight 3. At the same time, I had never seen a player score two goals on their own team in a game let alone a 15 minute scrimmage.

Then the second obstacle, I didn't even know her real name yet. I was going to miss their first playoff game because my team was playing at the same time. Without being able to communicate with Morris, I had to hope they didn't lose in the first round and possibly talk to Nitro's parents directly at the next game.

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