Stuff filed under "the kids"
Off to a good start. Won this afternoon’s game 32-6.
Not a very exciting game. Even less so because my little guy was having an ‘off’ day and the late-summer allergies are getting to him pretty bad and he ended up spending a good deal of time on the bench.
No game next weekend due to the holiday. Next game on the 11th
As promised here is some low quality video of the sack from Sunday’s game. It was enough to get my little guy named co-team leader for the week at practice.
With an asterisk.
Today was the kids first game – the premiere game. It doesn’t count towards your season record, kind of like a pro preseason game. Just a chance to get out on the field and see what’s working and what isn’t before the real games begin next weekend.
Today we felt the potential downfalls of a small squad. Due to various reasons we had 12 1/2 kids today. (1/2 because one had hurt his ankle earlier in the week and was ok to play, but the coaches really saw no reason to push him and keep it flared up) Turns out we used him quite a bit, but still not as much as we normally would have.
This meant you had a crapload of kids playing a crapload of time. My little guy played the entire first half on both sides of the ball and all but maybe 4 or 5 plays in the second half. Basically the coach was just rotating through the kids and giving them a 4 or 5 play break and then swapping out again.
Still the boys handled it really well.
It was a solid back-and-forth game. Pretty defensive in nature. The game ended up being called with 7 minutes and change left in the 4th quarter because of lightning. We were up 13-12 at that point and had the ball. Technically it was a win, but who knows what would have happened. Premiere game so who cares, I suppose?
My little guy is really coming into his own in his third season playing. Each year it seems to click a little more for him. The only thing he really lacks is speed, but he makes it up to some degree in tenacity and determination. The coaches constantly comment on how he is the only one who consistently gives 100% all the time. No one tries as hard as him. And yes, it’s kind of a nice way of saying, “He’s not the best, but damn, the kid wants it.”
This year they’ve slid him over to Tackle from Guard on offense and he starts there on both offensive schemes. The have him at a Defensive End position of defense.
On offense, he really can block and he knows the play and which hole to open and all that stuff – which is very important, but not very glamorous. On defense, he’s always *this close* to being in the center of shit. And on occasion he breaks out and makes a big play. Today it may have been the highlight tackle of the game…a bonafide sack! One of the three passes attempted all game, my little dude busts through the line and just grabs the kid. But there was no brutal hit or slam to the ground he just kind of held on to him by his legs. I think technically he was blown down by contact or whatever the hell it is when you have the QB wrapped up, but another defensive linesman can barreling in behind a moment later and put the QB down.
As long as he gets one or two of those each game, we’re good. It keeps his confidence up and establishes him as one of the ””players”” on the team. You gotta love watching your kids succeed like that – putting in time and effort and achieving growth and a result – even in something as silly as youth football.
I’m hoping to get a copy of video of the game. The coaches like to have each game videotaped so they can go back and watch for stuff to work on or little things that will help – like the pros do. The catch is that they need team parents to volunteer and parents would rather be watching the game and cheering their kids on. I volunteered to run the camera today because I know it’s a good tool for the coaches – and because the games are usually made available to us at some point as well. I’m hoping other parents step up along the way because last year it was a problem and some games didn’t get recorded. We play between 10 and 14 games over the course of the season depending how far in the tournament we go and there are 16 kids on the team. One parent a week is all we need.
So like I said, hopefully I get a copy sooner than later (We just got a DVD set of last year’s season this past week, so who knows. The year before that we were able to get DVDs each week) Maybe I’ll be able to rip the video and post a clip of that tackle.
So yeah, today we got a 13-12 win with an asterisk in our Premiere Game.
Apparently all I post about here anymore is football. If you want any other insight from me you need to be my friend on Facebook. There needs to be a way to automagically get shit I post on Facebook to slide over to my blog instead of the other way around. Fuckers!
Anyway…
One of the neat little things they do for the kids across the entire football league is let them pick nickname. Then your child is announced as “First Name, Nickname, Last Name” at the beginning of the game and during the game it allows for some creativity with the announcing. For the record, this year my son is “The Viper” after two years of being “The Cyclone” – he’s feeling more agressive and less whirlwindy, I guess.
Another neat thing most of the clubs do is make up a little intro CD for the beginning of the games. Basically some song that expresses your attitude with a voiceover announcing the cheerleaders and players and they each individually run onto the field. Makes it fun.
The first year my son played, our team’s intro music was this:
Which was pretty cool. Add the announcer voice and these little boys running onto the field and it was cute.
Last year we were supposed to have one made but apparently there were problems and the person they had gotten to do it kept blowing them off. We went the whole season with the announcer just reading a list of the kids names. It was kind of ghetto, but somehow as the season went on and we did so well, it became cooler. Like we’re all walk and no talk. I learned to like it.
This year I’ve already overheard the coaches and team moms talking about making sure they have a CD in time. Not sure who really decides on the music, but I suspect it isn’t going to be particularly cool and most likely “suburban edgy” – for example one suggestion I overheard was “AC/DC” – Ugh.
I guess I’ll find out on Sunday what our intro tune is. My choice (and it’s a tad cliched and I’ll bet we hear at least two or three other teams use it this year) would have been:
…because, face it, the kids coming out to that would be totally kick ass. I need to become some sort of team coach or dad or mom or volunteer so I might have some say in such things.
For the record a close second choice would be:
