Karma and Redemption in South Dakota

Last weekend we took a road trip to Rapid City, South Dakota for the last soccer tournament of the season, the Rushmore Invitational. We loaded all six of us in the family truckster for our first long car ride as a family, and off we went.

Soccer tournaments are great, because we have a core group of five or six families that all stay together in the same hotel. Or if we can swing it, we all rent a six bedroom condo for the weekend, pot-luck in a bunch of food, and just have a big old time. Everyone gets along great, and it’s one of the highlights of the year for all of us. In fact, we have a kid that isn’t on our team anymore, but they still come on the road trips because it’s so much fun.

So the tourney starts, and we play to a draw in our first two games (my kid Mike picked up a goal and two assists, thank you very much), and pretty much had to win the third game in order to move on to the final. In that game, we scored late to take a 2-1 lead. But because of an injury, the referee added time onto the end of the game. Our head coach wanted to know how much, and couldn’t get an answer out of the ref. He asked again, and was told to shut up. He asked one more time, and was ejected from the game.

Here’s why this was important. The boys ended up winning the game, and advanced to the championship on Sunday afternoon. But because of his ejection, our head coach couldn’t be on the sideline for that game. And he had no assistant coach.

Why no assistant, you ask? Let’s stop for a minute and go back a few months. Funny story about that.

For five seasons, I was the assistant coach of this team, and before that, I coached six or seven of those kids since they were around 6 years old. They’re 13 now, so I’ve been with them over half of their lives. Maybe the best seven years of my life, by the way. I got along great with the head coach, and he became one of my best friends.

Before what was going to be our last season together (they get new coaches when they turn 14), I wrote an article that appeared in a local website joking about a kid that Edge soccer had hired to coach a lower level squad in our age group. He was an idiot, treated his kids like crap, and was everything you wouldn’t want in a coach. I cracked him pretty hard, but he deserved it.

I was very careful not to mention Edge soccer, because I didn’t want to give the impression that I was running down the program. I had been on their board of directors, coached in the program for 14 years, and had put in hundreds of hours as Media Director for their women’s semi-pro team. Plus I was their Volunteer of the Year in 2007. I loved the club. I was just trying to point out that sometimes, it’s not a good idea to put kids in charge of other kids.

Well, the guy that hired the moron saw the article, and before you knew it, I was told that I couldn’t be an assistant coach for the club anymore. I guess he didn’t see the humor in the article, which doesn’t surprise me that much, because most of that organization have the personality of a car crash. But at least I’m not bitter.

So I spent the last season with my chubby ass on the other sideline with the parents. This was really unusual for me, because I’ve always been a coach in some form or another for all my kids’ teams. But that had to end sometime- I just wish it had ended under different circumstances. Plus I really missed those boys.

Now here’s the other important part of our tale, kids. I spent five seasons busting my hump not only to help coach the kids, but also trying to make the team a little family. My wife Annie and I would plan parties and team dinners, and I would write a game story every week, using Annie’s pictures to goof mostly on the parents and coaches. Much like I do with hockey, only a lot cleaner. No dick jokes. It took a lot of time, but it was fun, and we got a ton of hits on the website, even from outside our team. Everyone seemed to enjoy it.

But when I got bounced out of coaching, my “family” shunned me like I was an Amish hooker. I heard nice things from two parents, and the rest of them treated me like I was dipped in shit. No “man, that sucks, Al”, or “well, sorry, but thanks for making it fun”. Nothing.

I don’t want to sound like too much of a pussy, but that hurt, and it still hurts. I just thought we had a different relationship, that’s all.

Okay, enough of that nonsense, you’re caught up. So let’s flash forward to last Sunday. We’re in the championship game, but have no coach. The tournament committee said that we could have a parent stand on the sideline with the team, but at that level, you really need someone that knows something about the game.

Now these same parents that turned their back on me four months ago started coming up and asking, “Al, will you coach this game?” My kneejerk reaction was to ask them all to line up and take turns pressing their lips against my fuzzy white ass.

I said yes for two reasons.

First, the other coaching choice was a mom that had done nothing but bitch and moan the entire weekend, and thought she was the best person to coach the team. She almost blew a gasket lobbying to do it. The thing is, I have more knowledge of soccer in my gonads than she has in her entire body. It killed her that I was asked first. She never thought much of me as a coach.

That works out great, because I never thought much of her, either.

But the clincher came when a lot of the kids came up and asked if I would do it, including my own boy. There was no way in the world that I was going to ever let them down.

So for the first time in four years, and probably for the last time in my life, I was the head coach of a soccer team. In a championship game. For Edge Soccer. Before the game, I actually laughed about how ironic that was.

Have you ever seen the basketball movie “Hoosiers”? Great movie. Anyway, I felt like Shooter, the alcoholic assistant that had to coach when Gene Hackman got thrown out of the big game. Gene handed him the coach’s playbook, and said, “Take ‘em home, Shooter”. Then Shooter ran the “Picket Fence” play, and they won.

Well, Coach Willie went over the lineup with me before the game, and we set up a substitution pattern, got all the players in their positions, the whole nine yards. He wasn’t allowed to communicate with me at all during the game, so this was going to be the last time we would talk. We wrote it all down on a sheet of paper.

I don’t mind telling you that this was the most nervous I had ever been since I’ve coached anything, and that’s a lot of games, kids. Two hours earlier, I was playing Frisbee golf and hoping I could watch my boy play in the final. Now I was on the sideline pulling the goddamn strings in a title game, and there were at least two parents on the opposite sideline staring a hole through me. That would be the mom who thought she should be the coach, and a complete hag who joined the team this spring and has done nothing but cause trouble. I’m positive they were hoping the team would lose, just so they could say “I told you so”. I know that sounds paranoid, but you just have to know these miserable shits.

It looked like they were going to get their wish. We were up against a team from North Dakota that normally played a level up from us, and they were very, very good. They got a penalty kick on a real harsh call from the ref, and went up 1-0 in the first five minutes.

I kept my mouth shut. No way I was getting myself hucked out of this game, baby.

They went up 2-0 about ten minutes from half on a nice goal off of a crossing ball. Then they started toying with us, playing keepaway all over the field, and we weren’t getting any chances to score on their end at all. The half ended, and it didn’t look good for the lads.

I tried to talk to the kids at halftime, but everyone had their head down. Now I thought to myself, “Well, we can keep doing the same thing and lose, or try something different, and maybe really get our ass handed to us”.

Fuck it. If we’re going down, we’ll go down swinging. Let’s try the Picket Fence.

I put my lineup sheet in my pocket, and set up a new formation to get some more offense. That would leave us vulnerable in the back on defense, but who gives a shit if we lose 2-0 or 6-0? I mean, beside those two skanks on the other sideline?

I pleaded with the boys to push as hard as they could early in the second half, because I knew if we get one goal back, it would light a fire under them. I said, “Let’s ride 400 miles home tonight at least knowing we left it all on the field”.

Okay, it’s not exactly Gene Hackman, but it was the best I could come up with at the time. Cut me a break- I hadn’t done this in awhile.

The turning point of the game happened twelve minutes into the second half. Mike sent a great cross over to his pal Jay, and he headed one in from eight yards out. They’ve been playing together for six years, and know exactly where each other is on the field at all times. All of a sudden, it was 2-1.

Game on.

Now my guys were flying all over the field, challenging for every ball. I was officially in “Making This Shit Up as We Go Along” mode, asking kids if they had ever played certain positions, and subbing when I saw players getting tired. We had the other team playing on their back foot, and we just had to keep pushing for that equalizer.

With twelve minutes left, I decided to put what I thought was the best 11 players on the field, and that’s what we were going with the rest of the way. We had seven guys on offense going forward, and urgently. This was a completely different team now- I couldn’t have asked for better effort. They were leaving it all out there for sure, and it was freaking fun to watch.

With ten minutes left, Mike got fouled inside the penalty area, but the referee awarded the free kick outside. It was the only time I said anything to the ref the whole game- I begged him to consult his linesperson to see if she saw the foul inside the box. To his credit, he did, and she didn’t have the onions to reverse his call. But we still had a free kick from a good spot, about 19 yards away from goal.

It turned out to be academic. Willie’s son Tyler lobbed a beauty over the goalie’s hand, and right onto the head of midfielder Nathan, who had scored the game-winner in the previous match. He guided it in from five yards out, and we were level. Nathan might be the most clutch player on the team- just nails when you need him.

Now for those of you that have never seen me coach before, I am, what you might call, a little animated over on the sidelines. When Nathan’s header went into the net, I jumped as high as my chubby ass could get up, and started running down the sideline. I looked back and the players on the bench were laughing at me. Fair enough- you don’t often see a 50 year old pudgy dude jumping around like a little girl.

The only person more excited than me was Nathan’s dad, who was doing his own sideline sprint on his side of the field. Good for him. There’s nothing better than watching your kid succeed.

So when we started up again, there were eight minutes left in regulation. I had to start planning for extra time, and then the penalty shootout if it came down to that. I hoped that the other parents would understand, but I was not taking this team off the field.

Plus, if they did get pissed, what were they going to do, fire me? I had a free roll here, so I was sticking with those best 11 players. The son of Coach Wannabe on the other sideline wasn’t one of the 11. I found out later she was really unhappy about that. Tough shit.

Then with two minutes left, Jay got the ball running down the left side. He stopped near the corner flag, and freed himself up for a cross. That’s when he spotted my kid Mike breaking hard to the far post. Then he launched maybe the best high crossing ball I’ve ever seen, over the defenders, over the goalie, and right into Mike’s path, about six yards from the goal.

All Mike had to do was get a foot on it, and it was in. But it was a cross from around 25 yards, and it's tough to get the timing correct when you're coming in at full speed. I’ve seen kids miss this kick a thousand times, especially in a situation like this, with the game on the line.

He didn’t miss it.

He hit it perfectly on the inside of his foot, and volleyed it right into the empty net. After the game, I asked Mike to try and describe how he felt right after the ball went in.

“Dad, after I scored, I started running back upfield, and I couldn’t feel my feet touching the ground. It felt like I was running on top of the grass.”

If I live 50 more years, I’ll never forget what he said right then. A guy gets to have that rush maybe a handful of times in his entire life, and he just had one of his moments. Sudden, full, spontaneous joy. That’s reason number 850 why sports are so damn great.

As for me, I had my own little moment. Of course, I did the sprint thing down the sideline, flopping around like an idiot. Then I remembered that there was still time left, and I was still the head coach for another couple of minutes. When you’re an assistant, you have the luxury of being a cheerleader sometimes. Not now.

Keep your shit together, Shooter.

Now we were in full defensive mode. I pulled all my midfielders back, deep in our half. I kept two forwards up, just in case the ball went into their end, so they could pressure their defenders.

I looked at my watch, and regulation time ran out. I knew the referee was going to add some time on, but I didn’t know it was going to be three freaking minutes.

It was the longest three minutes of my coaching life, and maybe the most fun. They were coming hard, trying to tie it back up. And I was certain that if they did, we had shot our wad with the comeback, and would lose the damn thing in overtime.

We just couldn’t lose now. Not after that effort. Not after that improbable comeback against a better team. Not now.

North Dakota’s last chance came when they got a corner kick right at the end. I knew they would be sending everyone, including maybe their goalie, into the box, so I countered by putting all 11 of our guys in with them. If they scored, they were going to have to do it through a sea of humanity.

I couldn’t stand still. I started spontaneously bouncing up and down on the sideline like I had the Parkinson’s. Not my proudest moment.

Their player sent in a great kick, but our goalie Donovan aggressively came out and got a hand to it. The ball deflected to one of our guys, he blasted it out of the zone, and the ref finally blew his goddamn whistle. Game over.

I’ve been coaching one sport or another for over 30 years. But watching those kids jump all over each other at the end of that game was easily the most satisfying moment of my coaching career. Your pal even got a little verklempt, and that’s not like me.

Okay, I admit it- I’m a pussy. Leave me alone.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Settle down, Beavis, it was a kids soccer game. Not to me, guys. It meant a lot more to me than that.

If I didn’t believe in karma before, I sure do now. Too many things had to fall into place in order to get one last game; one last chance to coach soccer before I hang ‘em up for good.

I mean, what are the odds? We make the final. Willie gets ejected on a bullshit call, the committee allows me to coach without a card, we go down by two in the first half. The boys make a miracle comeback against a team that they had no business beating, my kid scores the game winner in the last two minutes, and I get to win the last game I’ll ever coach. No friggin’ way that should have happened.

But it sure did.

Now I can take my old, short ass back to the parent side of the field with no regrets. I finished my business, and went out my way. And I’ll never find a way to thank those boys enough for making it happen.