Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Sitting in No-Man's Land

Sam is the one sitting in No-Man's land.  It's not fun to watch, either!  There were so many kids trying out for football this year, that they got to make an A and a B team.  Sam made the A team for Defense and punt return and then the B team for Offense.  There are fewer B team game, though, because there are fewer teams that could field both an A and B team.  We thought that didn't matter, since Sam is on the A team as well.  Unfortunately, it does matter.  What we learned:  Sam is second string A team for corner back.  The defense coach never rotates his players the entire game, even though they almost all also play Offense.  Which means in an A team game, the same 15 guys play the entire game with the rest of the 45 players sitting on the side lines.  

The coach keeps telling Sam to stand right beside him, so that he will be there when he wants to put him in, but of course he never does.  Every time he has turned around at the end of the game, seen Sam and a couple other guys he has told this to and says, "Darn!  I forgot!  I got so excited and just forgot.  Next game!"  Yeah, right coach!  Finally on the third game, the coach told him that he was going to get to play a lot, but if he didn't, he would start him on the B team game the next day.  Sam got 4 plays.  The guys told him, that wasn't a lot (really?) so he was going to start him, tomorrow.  But low and behold the guy that has that position on the B team, wasn't too thrilled about someone taking his spot.  Go figure!  And since he was back to 100% (he was injured- only real reason the coach was going to let Sam start there), coach took Sam out as soon as possible and never put him back in.  So there you go- too good to be on the B team, but apparently not good enough to actually play on the A team!  No-Man's Land!  They also decided the safety's would be the ones to do the punt returns instead of the corners, so he lost that job.  The nice thing is, that he really does get to play offense on the B team.  He played almost the entire game as a wing. 

They made sure that everyone had playing time on the B team game (Except starting A team people, who aren't allowed to play B team games at all.)  It was so much more fun to watch and I didn't go home swearing at the coach!  Oh wait- yes I did- but not the Offense coach!

1 comments:

Searls Stuff said...

It is always so heartbreaking to watch kids sit on the bench, IF they actually want to play. Our grandson never minds sitting on the bench because he only plays to please the other adults in his life. Thankfully, this year he is starting band! No more football for him! Good luck juggling all the sports, dances, jobs, etc. in you life!