As I was out last night preparing Picazo Field for Coerver Camps, I was about to hang my new soccer net up and saw this lightning storm coming. There are times for everything and this was not a time to get up on a metal ladder in the middle of a field! This got me thinking about soccer and life, as most things do :)
I watch players who are in the middle of important soccer games and their team is down a goal. They get fouled, or sworn at, or bumped, or something goes wrong. The next thing you know, they retaliate verbally or physically and now they are thrown out of the game. Being one of the #coerverkids involves “sense”. Sense has to do with wisdom and it has to do with knowing what to do in any situation. Funneling emotions into more intense effort is a good thing. If you don’t play by the rules though, those emotions can work against you and now your team is playing a man down. As a coach, I will sometimes (in training sessions) make a bad call on purpose as a referee or change the score on the players in a game that has a consequence for losing (say it is 10 pushups to the losing team), then I will tell the players what I am doing because I want them to learn how to react and practice getting out of unfair situations. At the end of the session, maybe I do the pushups instead, not every time, so that they take the challenge seriously, but maybe sometimes. Maybe I let the game go a little bit longer until it is tied so no-one has the consequence. Practicing the “unfair” and practicing showing mercy to players are powerful forces that will prepare them for life and soccer situations.
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