The Perfect Season: A Masterclass In Humility

Note: To protect the innocent and save further embarrassment I have used fictitious names for the soccer players and omitted references to my two assistant coaches.? I would hate for Jeffrey Wallis or Jon Levy to be caught up in this…

I had been waiting for this my entire life. I was going to coach my boys in soccer.

We got our roster and I had a plan for these 5 and 6 year old future professional athletes. They didn't even know how wonderful their lives were going to be. During our first practice I arrived 30 minutes early setting up cones, measuring distances, planning for our march to Charlotte Jr Soccer glory. As each child was dropped off, I loudly greeted these aspiring future soccer greats to come join the team and prepare themselves for the best season of their young lives. They were wide eyed and not altogether focused on soccer. No problem, I had a plan, a great plan. And I had a clipboard. Each boy was run through a series of drills and tests. How fast could they sprint? How far could they run? How accurate could they pass? How far could they kick? I took all these measurements and then when the boys were picked up after practice the real work began. I assiduously poured over the data, double and triple checking the results. After hours of deep work I had devised a brilliant positional strategy. Our wingers would be the fastest kids, they would light up the sidelines and race past the inevitably slower defensive opponents. Our big accurate kickers would go in the back, especially in central defense to help clear the ball and set up our wingers for line breaking actions. The midfield was for the kids that were accurate passers and could run indefinitely. Wow! This was so easy. How did Pep, Arteta, or Ancelotti ever lose??? I dreamt of the news articles in the local newspaper extolling our team’s success as we rolled through The Perfect Season.

Oh we did roll. Roll over that is.

The Perfect Season was finally and thankfully over. It was a shameful ordeal and one in which I, as the coach, rightfully took all the blame. We were Perfect, just not the kind of perfect I had envisaged. We didn't win a single game.?

I had made a massive mistake, a strategic blunder, one that had brought shame to all the families that entrusted their young impressionable children to my naive coaching. I had confused ability for ambition. Each of these little boys was on fire for soccer, they played their little hearts out. But their coach had put them in all the wrong positions. Sure little Johnny, who I had placed on the wing, was incredibly speedy but he didn't really want to score, he preferred running fast next to someone else who had the ball and then taking it from them.? Anthony, who I had put in midfield, ran tirelessly and had a soft touch but he never saw his open teammates for the pass because the goal and especially the thought of him kicking the ball in the goal consumed his entire consciousness.

Luckily the league commissioner did not have to make a "tough decision" regarding my coaching career. It turns out you have to do a lot worse than lose all your games to get fired as a volunteer soccer coach. The other teams didn't seem to mind our ineptitude and I had a solid voting block as half of the boys on the team were direct descendants of myself or the other assistant coaches. There was a lot to ponder in the off season. I had to set things right and make up for my shortcomings from The Perfect Season.?

Stay tuned for Part II and find out if Coach Spykerman learned anything about the difference between ability and ambition or if he doomed his team to a second ignominious season.?