Life Lessons Learned Coaching 5th Grade Girls' Soccer

So yesterday we had another game. Again, we were short of players. We play 11-on-a-side soccer and we had only 8 players. We drafted two 2nd grade sisters of team members and one non-soccer-playing 5th grader who happened to have come along with a friend. The other team was mixed 5th and 6th graders. I didn't feel I could put the tiny girls in at defense because they would have been run over by the other team's larger forwards. Meanwhile, I have two club players on the team who are primadonnas. They both want to play forward and they're both very good at it. Consequently, I had several girls who had to play defense the whole game.

By the second half, I had a full-scale revolt on my hands.

The girls who had to play defense were rightfully angry at not getting to move into other positions. They played with their arms folded and spent a lot of time talking to each other while on the field. When the ball came down to our end, they only grudgingly went after it.

To make matters worse, in the first half, I had put one of my primadonnas at center midfield. One of her jobs was to get back on defense when the other team pushed the ball into our end. She didn't want to do that and decided instead to play as if she was a forward.

Faced with enraged players on defense, halfway through the second half I swapped positions and made my primadonnas play defense so I could let at least two of the revolutionaries play something else. My primadonnas decided to play as if they were midfielders instead. It was chaos.

We ended the game tied, 1-1, which was far more than we deserved.

The problem was not where the girls were playing, nor was the problem my decisions. The underlying problem is this: You play team sports for your teammates, not for yourself. Everyone was playing for themselves. If this isn't corrected, this team is going to either lose a lot more games or blow apart in catfights and then lose a lot more games.

We're going to have a team meeting on Tuesday and I'm going to try to get the point across that when you don't play your position, you're telling the rest of the team that you're more important than they are. You're saying that you matter than all the rest of them combined. It's not about the coach, it's about your relationship with your friends on the team.

I hate to lose. I hate it. However, I'm willing to blow the rest of the season and miss the playoffs in order to make this point.

What is true on the soccer field is true in life in general. As a husband or father or mother or wife, your performance is about the family, not about yourself. At your job, your performance is about the group, not about yourself. Families and organizations that forget this end up like our soccer team. They become filled with angry, sulking members who just want the whole thing to be over or primadonnas who think they're too good for everyone else.

This isn't LSU football. It's 5th grade, Catholic school, girls' soccer. It's not a big deal if we don't win the championship. However, it is a big deal if we miss the chance to teach the girls about selflessly working together as a team.