RED THREAD
JEWFRO
AWAY
An Open Letter To Team Portugal
n
By Ben Falik
ote: At the time of this writing,
Sweden is the only thing stand-
ing between Team Portugal and a
trip to the 2014 World Cup in their old
South American stomping ground.
This letter is to a different — simi-
larly spirited, if less Iberian —Team
Portugal: the seven preschoolers we
have had the privilege of coaching in
South Oakland County Soccer.
Dear Team Portugal:
We love to watch you play. Your
clumsiness is elegant. Though your
shins are guarded, you sway like the
same blades of uncut grass you can-
not resist plucking whenever we are
trying to explain which goal is"our
goal!' Your pace is poetic. When you
aren't distracted by a DTW-bound
airplane or foil gum wrapper, you em-
body the words of the immortal Pele:
"Enthusiasm is everything. It must be
taut and vibrating like a guitar string"
Your enthusiasm, in particular, for
drinking water from squeeze bottles
gives us hope for the hydration of an
entire generation.
We love to watch you play. And
we're not just saying that because
Bruce E. Brown and Rob Miller of Pro-
active Coaching LLC said to say that.
Over the past 30 years, athletes have
told them with striking frequency that
those are the six words that made
them feel great and amplified their
joy during and after a game.
And, distinguished members of
Team Portugal, we hope you love
riding home with us after the game.
Because that ride home is cited more
than anything else as young athletes'
worst memories of playing sports.
A disproportionate number of the
75 percent of kids who stop playing
organized sports by age 13 owe early
retirement to insufferable parents and
their post-game analysis.
Don't worry, Jake and Judah, your
Coach Dads are not, as you may sus-
pect from their presence on the field
of play, demonstrating Proactive's
Sign No. 5 That You're a Nightmare
Sports Parent ("Living your own ath-
letic dream through your child").
I have coached middle school boys
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and high school girls, and — fearful
of both for reasons that should be
obvious to anyone who's encountered
either — rarely set foot on the field. If
we did not remain on the field during
your games, it is highly unlikely any of
you would.
Team Portugal, you can play soccer
throughout your formative years
— as short-shorts-wearing adults,
even — and we will not think you are
communists. Author David Eggers
theorizes that the way kids drop soc-
cer as quickly as they start"is attribut-
able, in part, to the fact that people
of influence in America long believed
that soccer was the chosen sport of
communists'
Well, we've torn down that wall as
passionately as you tear the straw
from your Strawberry Kiwi Capri Sun.
And if, as Eggers suggests, relying
on one's feet seems un-American,
then you, Team Portugal, have noth-
ing to fear, as you routinely find it
appropriate to use your hands, even
though games in your age bracket are
played without goalies. And no one
can accuse you of flopping, (Player)
Ben, when you spontaneously decide
to lie down on the grass until (Coach)
Ben comes over to lift you, dangling
legs and all, like a not-yet-real-boy
Pinocchio.
You are all winners, Team Portugal,
even though winning doesn't matter
or whatever. In spite of your difficulty
walking in a straight line to high five
the opposing team — not that we
really oppose them — you embody
whatever the gender neutral word for
sportsmanship is.
Two pieces of advice should you
someday have the opportunity to
coach your own kids. First, do not
forget the orange sections; FIFA will
not recognize the game as having
been played without sticky sections of
oranges eaten by players and Coach
Dads. Second, please marry someone
who will be nice to your mother.
Futebol para a vida!
Coach Ben and Coach Steve
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RED THREAD I November 2013 31