Friday, June 19, 2009

One more day of soccer...

...and if the run like they did tonight, we won't have to worry about game two tomorrow, as one parent put it tonight.

We finished the season yesterday with 7 wins (but last night's win was sketchy. Could have been a tie, but we'll go with what the ref said), 5 losses and 2 ties. Not too bad, especially since we were at 2 wins and 5 losses at one point!

The tournament started tonight, all the players were out, but there was a sad lack of hustle on the part of too many players, and we lost 2-0. Happily, it works out for my schedule tomorrow, since I'm supposed to be in 2 places at once! We have a city wide young adult event where we're helping the local Rescue Mission get their new building closer to being ready to use. It will run well without me, but I would like to be there. This way I get to be there to start things off, and then our soccer game starts at 11.

If we win that we play at 2; if not, it's straight to the hotdogs and trophys.

Wish us luck!

One mom made cupcakes for our team - they were AMAZING! The icing was green grass, they had little jerseys with the numbers on them (and one that said coach!) and little soccer balls made out of icing that even had the black spots. Wow.

Here's a question. Do you think everyone should get trophies for participation? Or is it ok to hand those out just to the winners? I think that they become meaningless if they mean "Congratulations, you showed up!" We've already thrown out 2! Shouldn't you know how to run, dribble, and kick a ball before you win trophies for it? I think you can over affirm a child to the point that they never feel like they need to try harder at anything. And I think that's a crying shame. Ok, off my soapbox and back to work, but please leave me a comment with your opinion on this!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I concur. Have a great weekend!

Alexis said...

I think people (especially kids and youth) need to be acknowledged for participating. Otherwise (and I get this lots at work with my youth) they start to wonder why they ever stepped up to try something in the first place.

I tend to be a big fan of the "sliding scale" for rewards. With the biggest rewards (e.g., trophies and medals and gift certificates) being given to the winners and the acknowledgement of participation (e.g., certificates or goodybags) being given to those who didn't win. This way everyone still feels like they got something and thus it was important to play, but there's still something to work even harder for next year.