Single soccer mom?

This is my kid’s fifth soccer season, and for years, I dared myself to show up to a game wearing this T-shirt:

But I could not have embarrassed her like that. Me? And besides, everyone on our team already knew that I was single anyway. Moreover, it’s very unlikely that a single dad from the rival team — from all the way on the other side of the field — would have even seen my T-shirt from that far away.

I never played sports as a kid, so maybe it was just a selfish wish to want a soccer dad. He could have explained to me exactly what a “forward” and a “sweeper” were. (It took me two seasons to get it.) He would have been the kind of guy who enthusiastically cheered from the sidelines, the one who let the coach really be The Coach. He would not have stepped in and screamed loudly, “Pass it!” or “Get rid of it!” — or worse.

If your kids play sports, you know what kind of men I’m talking about. (I don’t mean to come down on you, guys, but I’ve never seen a mom exhibiting this kind of behavior from the sidelines.)

It’s the kind of behavior that one father – Mike Woitalla, who coaches youth soccer in Northern California and is the executive editor of Soccer America — describes in a recent email I got. It’s his latest column, written “for the kids.” Of course, when he wrote at the top, “Adults can stop reading now,” I kept on reading (and cracking up big time!)

“Dear Soccer-Playing Children of America,

The fall season is underway and I’m hoping you’re having a great time. I’m hoping that you’re playing soccer more than you have to stand in line and do drills.

I hope you’re falling in love with the soccer ball and keep it with you as much as you can. Juggling it. Kicking it against a wall. Dribbling it around in your backyard.

And I especially hope that your parents aren’t screaming at you during your soccer games.

I worry that you probably do get yelled at, because that’s what I see at almost all the youth soccer games I go to. Hopefully you just ignore it. But I don’t blame you if it bothers you….”

He goes onto explain that if parents do scream from the sidelines, they’re not necessarily “bad people. But, unfortunately, sports does something to adults that makes them behave in ways they usually wouldn’t.”

“Get adults around sports and all of a sudden they forget the same manners they try to teach you. In a way, sports are like driving. A grown-up gets behind the wheel and all of a sudden forgets you’re not supposed to pick your nose in public.

And when grown-ups go watch their children play soccer, they, for some reason, think it’s OK to scream like maniacs. Perhaps they don’t realize what they’re doing. Like the nose-pickers on the freeway who think they’ve suddenly gone invisible.”

At the end of his column, he encourages kids to remind their parents, “that it’s your playtime….Ignore the shouts if you can. But don’t be afraid to say, ‘I’m trying my best. Please, don’t scream at me.’ ”

~~~

I know that many of your kids play sports. Do you ever see other parents who forget that it’s not their playtime? (Or, tell the truth: Is that YOU?)

T-shirt image from BrattyTees.com

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Tagged as: behave, Mike Woitalla, play, scream, shout, sideline, single mom, soccer, Soccer America, sports, youth