Magnet Ball

I just spent one of the most miserable hours watching a common children's game. Technically it was soccer, but routinely call it 'magnet ball'. I love this term, because it relates to pretty much every sport that the 10-and-under crowd plays. It can be used with basketball, T-ball, soccer, or any other game where the children should be playing as a team. It comes from the tendency for each player to completely forget any drill, practice or position they've learned and just spring into action, glue themselves shoulder-to-shoulder into a little clump and follow the ball around the field. Not much gets accomplished in a game like this, but all the players come off the field smiling because they got lots of glimpses of the ball in between everyone else's feet.

The misery wasn't because of the action on the field, but because of the weather. We've had a string of days from paradise, and this morning's blustery, rainy conditions made me slowly freeze to death as I huddled on the side yelling things like "pass" and "shoot". It's especially hard to take the dreary weather on the heels of sublime conditions, and it really makes me cross to hear comments like 'we really needed the rain' or 'it'll be good for the flowers'. I want the Garden of Eden, people- all sunshine, warm temperature, no rain, lush vegetation!

So, I'll be staying inside today, perhaps jetting out for a quick tanning session to pretend I'm at the beach and reveling in the fact that Caroline's team won the game 11-0 because the entire team played offense. Since they had longer legs and ran faster than the opposite team's players, defense wasn't really that critical this time around.

Seriously, Caroline has a dedicated, skilled coach who really would prefer to have the kids spend the the season in practice with no games at all. He has taught them solid basic skills and many of them play beyond the typical ability for this age. But since they are 9 and under, it takes them a game or two to remember how to put those drills into play during a game. The coach is so popular that he has had the same basic team for the last 4 years or so. Each season, his players request to be on his team so many of the same kids are playing together year after year. I'm hoping soccer ends up being Caroline's sport of choice, because a) I don't mind watching it b) she's played long enough already that by high school she might be really good c) a college scholarship would be very handy. No pressure here!