Rain, rain, go AWAY!

I'm not entirely sure about the impact of global warming, but it sure seems like 2009 has seen more than its share of baseball and soccer games affected by mother nature. We don't live in Seattle, but rather in a close-in suburb of a major east coast city. Our playing field space is precious and probably not sufficient for a town of about 12,000 and all the baseball, softball, soccer, football, lacrosse, rugby, ultimate frisbee, etc. that is played. The "nice" fields must be nursed through the season because of all the traffic, and sometimes this leads to controversial decisions about when to close them. It seems the "Field Czar" is probably one of the most powerful people in town, given his absolute power over usage (and lighting!) issues. We should probably be considered an upper middle class town, not exceedingly wealthy, not terribly working class overall, but somewhat diverse economically, and highly taxed from a real estate standpoint. So, what do we do when it rains? We struggle. Fields are closed at the drop of a hat. Games are cancelled. Attempts to move indoors on the fly are sometimes successful, sometimes not. So, you would think we are a great candidate for artificial turf, no? Well, that one was put up for a referendum a couple of years ago, and despite the shifting demographic toward a younger population with school-age kids, it was soundly defeated. Some were concerned about health issues. Most were concerned about money. As I said, taxes are high and people are fairly fed up with the increases. Sure, they will swallow hard and vote in favor of things like improving the schools from an academic standpoint, but dumping more money into sports wasn't going to fly. So, here we are with our over-taxed natural grass. A little bit of rain (which we've had a lot of this year) stops us in our tracks and we are consigned to playing wii indoors. I guess we'll just pray for a drought next year.

Helping out the Coaches

In our town's AYSO rec soccer league, we rely on the parent volunteers to coach the kids' teams. While everyone is grateful for the time and effort these busy folks put in during a season, this league model comes with its own set of challenges. In particular, the demand for volunteers usually exceeds the supply of experienced soccer people. At some of the very young age groups, this is ok, as the session seems to be more about photo opps, snack time, and parent interaction than it is about 2 v 1's and 3 v 2's. Nothing an extended game of "Sharks and Minnows" can't handle! But as the kids get older, inexperienced coaches present a real challenge. Many of the kids also play on more advanced travel teams, and the thought of spending an hour on Saturday at practice with a coach who may be a great person but hasn't much of a clue about the game is a big negative. In my web travels, I found a product that seemed to fit the bill and we are now "beta-testing" (sounds official, eh?) it during our current season. It is called "Coach Deck" and we've given it to every one of our parent coaches to start the season. it is a deck of 52 playing cards, each with a soccer drill broken down on it. The drills are broken down by skill category: dribbling, passing, defense and shooting. Think of it as a "Cliff Notes" version of soccer practice for the coach. Understanding that every coach has a busy day job, the cards should go a ways toward helping to quickly plan and implement a productive practice. The deck fits in a pocket and the drills are pretty easy to understand. So, as we go through the season, it will be interesting to see how the coaches find the product. I was encouraged to see one coach using them at a indoor session this weekend. My goal here is to go through a season without having my soccer-loving British neighbor tell me his kid doesn't want to go to 8:30 am practice because the coach runs a "dodgy"practice. Time will tell.