A Good Thing for Emma

Being cut from the high school soccer team was pretty tough on Emma.  She has been our little athletic girl all her life.  She finally decided to sign up for rec league soccer, instead.  She got on a team that won about 1/2 of the time and then lost big time the other 1/2.  They one time lost 10-0.  In soccer, that is a crazy score!!  The great thing about the team was, they valued each other and they had fun even while playing hard.

Operation Socks

 When they started loosing badly, they made it more fun, by doing cartwheels and doing the baby carry (the goalie put the ball in his shirt and just carried it all the way up to mid-field before they stopped him!) 

Operation B.O.B (boobs over ball- soccer term to help them kick with power)

Nobody yelled at anyone else about how horrible they were doing or who should have done what.  In that atmosphere, Emma blossomed.  She was an animal her last game!

Last game

I was so impressed.  The other team was full of guys who were on the JV boys team who wanted to play a little extra.  They were really good.  (The varsity guys team is rocking the state this year.)  They also were a little too physical against a team with at least 1/2 girls.  One guy even got a yellow card after he knocked Hannah down, again!  Soon after, Emma put her foot out, got the ball away from him and knocked him down in the process.  She also scored a goal with it.  The other team's coach was like, "Dude, I think you just lost some of your manhood back there."  It was awesome!  When she was on the School team, she was yelled at often and there was a lot of cattiness going on.  In the end, she never did anything with the ball, but get rid of it as soon as she had it.  She never did any footwork and she didn't try real hard to get the ball.  She didn't score once, during the whole season.  But with this team, she was their second highest scorer.  (Second only to David who came from Germany, having played on a German league, but who came too late for summer training and only made it to the try-outs.  They wouldn't even look at him.  See how crazy the politics are in this place!  Unreal!)

Operation Warpaint

So thankful for fun teams and people who remember what sports are all about!