For the past four weeks, with the exception of one rain date, we’ve spent Saturday mornings at Marcel’s soccer practice.
Much to my chagrin, Marcel has never evidenced much interest in playing ball of any sort. If I turn the TV to football, Marcel falls out into a spasm, as if I’d taken away her lunch. Her various sport toys collect dust, while Marcel turns her attention to the music, art and kitchen toys. Even as a baby, the only attention she would give to balls that I rolled her way was the occasional attempt at chewing them. There’s so much value in team sports, however, from fitness to socialization, that I’d thought we’d give it a try, anyway.
We couldn’t just show up, though. We had to get equipment, including her own soccer ball. Somehow, someway, Marcel must have heard about soccer–we’re a football household–and was intrigued by the prospect of getting equipment for playing the game. So, when I told Marcel that we would have to get soccer equipment, she got very interested. In fact, she even queried about it over and over.
“Soccer? We’re going to play soccer?”
Eventually, we got to the sporting goods store one school night. Here, we started to get off track. We started in the section with shin guards. I was a little befuddled by the selection. Apparently, soccer equipment had come a long way since I played in high school. Things were further complicated by the fact that Marcel wasn’t as interested in the selection as I was, but preferred the opportunity to run wild in a new environment, instead. It took quite an effort to corral her long enough to choose a pair.
The next sign of trouble was choosing the soccer ball. Ignoring the classic white and black hexagonal design, as well as a sleek blue, silver and white number, Marcel settled on a pink version. I admit that I briefly wondered if a girlie color would impede a competitive spirit but quickly shrugged it off. Style and heart, I concluded, need not be exclusive to each other. After picking out a BPA-free water bottle, we finally headed over to the cleats.
There, we came across a mother-daughter combination buying cleats, too. That daughter was significantly older than my Marcel–5 or 6 years older, at least–and she knew what she was doing. Marcel was fascinated by the girl and her routine of trying on, then testing, her cleats, and she couldn’t wait to mimic the girl with her own sprint through the store. Finally, I thought, Marcel is interested in sports.
Then soccer practice started.
She was good for the first half of practice. She not only played close attention to the instructor, but she even did a fair impression of his moves. Keep this up, I thought, and I’ll be able to buy tickets to the 2028 Olympics! Then Marcel noticed the playground equipment.
A sly smile spread across her face, then she made a mad dash for the colorful jungle gym, without even once looking back at her soccer ball. I grabbed her up before she reached paydirt and carried her back to the square patch of grass marked off with tiny, orange traffic cones that served as our “soccer field”, and told her to finish practice. Her interest lied elsewhere, though, namely this new game of “catch the playground” with her dad. Ultimately, the only way I could get her to focus on the soccer instruction was to bribe her with the promise of a brownie.
Over time, her interest flagged so much so that, by the most recent practice, Marcel was no longer asking about soccer. On the contrary, she was openly protesting even having to put on her cleats. Still, we made the trek out to practice, with me struggling to find ways to motivate and inspire her to appreciate the sport.
For the first few moments, nothing came to mind. I stood by her as she stood by her ball looking at the practice from our forlorn corner of the square. Eventually, the instructor asked everybody to carry their ball to the center and start stretching and Marcel grudgingly complied. Then he started slowly running around the square and, as Marcel and the rest of the students dribbled behind him, he asked the group to try to hit him with their balls.
Then Marcel hit him.
Then I lost my cool.
“Yeah, Marcel,” I yelled, jumped and clapped! For the past five minutes, Marcel had, slowly, got more and more engaged, which was thrilling enough. And she also had exhibited new skills in controlling her ball. This also thrilled me. Most importantly, however, when I spontaneously cheered, she beamed with joy, which thrilled me even more!
Maybe she was just happy that she hit the coach and won the game. But maybe my cheering was the means I had been looking for to motivate and inspire her through practice and, maybe, even to the Olympics! Maybe I was the one who had hit paydirt or, as that famous, Spanish-speaking, soccer announcer Tony Tirado would say, made “Goooooooooooooool!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
So, when the class had moved onto the new drill–a pseudo-jumping jack, except the kids kept their hands on their hips and jumped around their soccer ball–I started cheering wildly, again. Marcel, however, didn’t beam this time. Instead, my 3 y.o. flashed a 13 y.o.’s embarrassment and impatience and shouted me down with a very stern, “Daaaaaaaaaaaaad.”
And, thus, it appeared we had both got a little ahead of ourselves.
